Progressing children’s participation: Exploring the potential of a dialogical turn

Abstract

Children’s participation is increasingly ambiguous and contested. Such complexity emerges in response to its emancipatory possibilities as well as unresolved tensions and power practices. The authors argue that closer attention must now be given to the interpretative milieu of children’s participation, that is, to the act of dialogue that has emerged as central to the participatory process. They point to the need for a critical examination of dialogue in facilitating and resisting the recognition of children. The article concludes with a number of questions to be addressed, if a dialogic approach to participation is to be more fully realized.