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Hart's Ladder of Participation

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Critically analyse Hart’s Ladder of Participation.
What are the types of decisions children and young people can be involved in, and what is the link between the children and the adults when the participatory approach is put into practice? When should adults be more active in guiding children, and when should they step back and allow the children to work autonomously? Roger Hart (1992) developed a model, the Ladder of participation, which is made up from eight steps, each step indicate increasing degrees of pupil participation and dissimilar forms of cooperation with adults. The three lowest steps on the ladder of participation are called the “non-participation” steps , and they strongly state that many projects claiming to engage
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Throughout group working and appropriate support of facilitation, children may be able to negotiate ‘new kinds of relationships and partnerships’ as suggested by O 'Kane (2002).
Cases involving children as participants enjoy better efficiency and effectiveness. Children’s participation is considered to lead to better decision-making, whether this is in relation to projects that are interested on issues of specific concern to the children (Lansdown, 2003) or within development processes in the wider society (Phillips, 2000).
Additionally, in some people’s view, functioning with children may be the most successful way of bringing out issues of concern within the society as a whole since the young are less self-conscious in their discussion of matters. It is usually supposed that the Unite Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) provides an apparent support for children 's participation.
Actually, this issue has been questioned by quite a few commentators. It is pointed out, for instance, that the reference in Article 12 to children’s developing capacities and the proclamation in Article 3 about children’s ‘best interests’ both offer valuable grounds for adults to take priority over the expressed ideas and wishes of children ( Cantwell, 1998; Liebel,2000). It can be said that the UNCRC provides ‘a new vision of children’. It combines the recognisable view of the
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