Introduction

The past 20 years have seen a change in the language and the rhetorical framework within which the debate about social policy for children and young people is conducted. There is a growing acceptance, in principle at least, that children and young people are not simply objects of adult concern, but should be seen as citizens with rights. The most obvious manifestation of this change can be seen in the near-universal ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, endorsed by the UK Government in 1991).

Many of the rights contained in the UNCRC are based on predictable and well-accepted ideas about welfare and protection, but the UNCRC also recognises that children are in possession of the political right to participate in decisions that affect them, and this represents a significant and qualitatively different dimension (Foley et al, 2001). It has been argued that failure to recognise the legitimate political rights of children and young people to contribute to the debate about the construction of social policy is an important factor in understanding the marginal position and social exclusion of particular groups of children and young people (Brown, 1998; Badham, 2004; Brannen and Cairns, 2005).

It has to be said that, although there is evidence of a change in the rhetoric, it is less easy to provide evidence of a change in the extent to which the participation rights of children and young people are respected in reality. If, as is argued below, some of the mechanisms that have been adopted are ineffective, that is, they create an impression of participation without the contribution of children and young people having any actual impact upon the outcome of the debate, then it is reasonable to question the depth of the commitment to the human rights of children. Osler and Starkey (2003) summarise the rights of citizens to ‘participate in and influence government’. Without the influence, participation would be tokenistic. It is in reference to this relationship – between the rhetoric and reality of children's involvement in decision making – that the debate about the purpose of participation is particularly relevant.

This is partly because it is possible to promote the participation of children and young people for a number of purposes (Crimmens and West, 2004; Sinclair, 2004). Not all of these are necessarily exclusive, but nor are they always complementary.