“Children's participation – some issues about participatory research with children in Portugal“

1. Natália Fernandes Universidade do Minho; LIBEC, IEC/UM Catarina Tomás Universidade da Beira Interior; LIBEC, IEC/UM Portugal European Science Foundation Seminar“Children’s participation in decision-making: Exploring theory, policy and practiceacross EuropeBerlin, 16-18 June 2008 “Children's participation – some issues about participatory research with children in Portugal“

2. It’s a faculty of the University of Minho that assures the teaching, the research and other specialized services related to children from 0 to 10 years old. Institute of Child Studies, Portugal

3. TEACHING: • Bachelor in Early Childhood Education; • Bachelor in Elementary Education • Masters on Child Studies - Sociology of Childhood • PhD on Child Studies

4. Research Centre of Children’s Literacy and Well-Being (LIBEC) – Group of Childhood Social Worlds • “Childhood Social Worlds” general aim: to promote research about the social conditions of childhood domain in the contemporary society. • “Childhood Social worlds” specific subjects: • children’s rights; • childhood public politics; • children’s conditions of inclusion and social exclusion; • child poverty; • childhood in the world-wide order; • childhood, globalization and social movements; • child work; • children’s participatory methodologies ; • children’s cultures; • childhood and citizenship; • children and the city (children’s participatory budgeting) RESEARCH

5. Our proposal: identification and goals • Natália Fernandes PhD in Child Studies/Sociology of Childhood (2005). • “Childhood and Rights: Children’s participation in life contexts – representations, practices and powers” . • A participatory research with children from 8 to 12 years old, from two different social contexts – a middle-class public school called “Escola Pública” and a residential centre called “Colégio dos Rouxinóis” in order : • To know how social conditions configure the construction of children’s social identity, how children define themselves and others, and also how they see themselves as citizens, holders of rights and responsibilities. • To understand the nature of the experiences that are necessary to the fulfilment of children’s rights, namely family, protection and participation rights.

6. Catarina Tomás PhD in Child Studies/Sociology of Childhood (2007) • “There are many worlds in the world…Children’s Rights, Children’s Cosmopolitism and Children’s Social Movements – dialogues between Portuguese and Brazilian children.” • This work aims to listen and read, as in interpreting, children’s discourses about their rights and representations of themselves, other children, children’s rights and the world they live in. • The field work with children (6-10 years old) and their teachers took place in public school settings (2004 to 2006). • In addition to the work developed with children of Barcelos (Portugal) and Florianópolis (Brazil), case studies included in this research involve children from social movements such as: Landless Workers Movement and National Movement of Street Boys and Girls. Our proposal: identification and goals

7. Theoretical principles • Children are competent social actors. • Children’s participation is an inseparable principle of children’s image as competent social actors. • Participation means developing social actions with meaning and valuable in children’s worlds. • Participation implies sharing power. • Considering the diversity of children’s "languages" as a strategy for the recognition and appreciation of differences in the construction of knowledge about themselves.

8. Methodological issues • Participatory Research with children • Overcome the idea of methodological “purity” - considering comprehensive and flexible methodological principles, in a sociological and critical theoretical perspective on childhood in the globalization context. • The need for children to understand which project or process it is, which purpose and role in which dynamics; • Children’s involvement from the early stages of any process; • The use of methods that bear in mind: • Their relative lack of power in families, schools and communities; • Their different uses and understanding of language; • The valorisation of children’s competences.

9. Interviews; • Drawings; • Individual and group discussions; • Sociodrama; • Painting workshops; • Photography workshops; • Puzzles; • Sending letters; • Cooperative Games; • Making a newspaper… Strategies/Methodological Tools

10. Results: Creative and revealing ways of communication and different languages

11. Results: Creative and revealing ways of communication and different languages

12. Results: Creative and revealing ways of communication and different languages

13. "We have the right to participate even in cases where we have some type of knowledge and we should not be put aside by adults, because they sometimes think they are the best/the greatest: "Then, we are the greatest", but sometimes we have knowledge than can be useful to them” (Rodrigo, 9: Public School). Results: Powerful narratives

14. "Yesterday, for example, I was with my mother and with my sister and my sister just started saying she wanted to be of a certain religion... but she was joking! Then my mother said that children had to follow their parents’ religion. I immediately said: "No, we don’t, because the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that each child has the right to have the religion he/she wants, and parents can only help them." I fetched the Convention on the Rights of the Child and showed it to my mother, and my mother understood.” (Mariana, 10: Public School). Results: Powerful narratives

15. “We are going… to still fight, because want land but also … all people must have land, people must have health, house, education…rights…you know? And leisure (...) And children like adults must have and… must fight for their rights. We fight to have public education.” (Jorge, 9: Landless Workers Movement). Results: Powerful narratives

16. Constraints in (the exercise of) children’s participation • The questions of power between adults and children, in which frequently the relations of control and regulation prevail on more democratic and horizontal relations, of negotiation and participation. • The structural inequalities that do not allow for the recognition and appreciation of differences, influencing in different ways the possibilities of children to participate. • The cultural dimensions are also important and confers diverse and heterogeneous possibilities and ways of children’s participation

17. The construction of a child’s image as an active subject of rights leads to the use of methodologies that promote their participation. • Considering their participation and appreciating their competences are two basic tools for building their social dynamics, in which plurality and heterogeneity need to be recognised and valued (Fernandes, 2005). • The characterisation of their social and cultural worlds is only possible if we take into account participation spaces and strategies that will unveil social realities, within their world and practices, that would otherwise remain hidden (Tomás, 2006). • The demand is to promote early social participatory practices with children in order to build social and political competences that enable them: • To actively cope with inequalities that they have to face. • To became active citizens; • To (re)construct participatory social arenas. Emergent Reflections