The article ‘Child Participation in the Early Years: Challenges for education’ by Jo Ailwood, Susan Danby, and Marianne Theobald (2011) presents a range of aspects around child participation in Australia. It furthermore discusses the lack of education that children receive in regards to this matter.
Throughout this article, there are six main headings, these being; understanding child participation, child participation in Australian policy, advancing the child participation agenda (the child competence paradigm), participatory rights, impediments to participation in early childhood education and ways forward for early childhood education. The article thoroughly explores these headings at length, and then creates recommendations. Recommendations …show more content…
I believe that children should be given the opportunity to learn more about the policies and laws that govern their daily lives. More emphasis within the Australian curriculum should be put upon helping children form opinions for themselves. I believe that this will help the younger generation know more about the world around them, thus better preparing them for their adult lives. As a social worker in training, we are taught that ‘people are experts of their own lives’. Therefore, to an extent, I believe that this is the same for children. However, children’s decisions and opinions upon their own lives, remains limited (McLeod, 2008, p. 50). Children, the same as adults, have knowledge that may be contributed to services that effect them, if participation was better taught within schools and adults were able to listen and take better notice of children’s views. (Nothard et al., 2015, p. 440). While I believe that it is important that children are able to give their views and opinions upon policies that are affecting them, I do also conclude that there are difficulties in doing so. Alison Clark and June Statham (2005) state that ‘adults have uncertainty about how to listen to children’ (Clark & Statham, 2005, p. 45). I believe that this is true, as adults feel entitlement over children, as they have experienced life, more than children have. This entitlement may make adults think that children’s opinions are not intelligible enough to be taken seriously. I think that it is important that children are able to have more of a say in the policies and legislations that affect them. I also believe that child participation should be better taught during early childhood education and that the recommendations of the original article should be taken into account in regards to
Throughout this article, there are six main headings, these being; understanding child participation, child participation in Australian policy, advancing the child participation agenda (the child competence paradigm), participatory rights, impediments to participation in early childhood education and ways forward for early childhood education. The article thoroughly explores these headings at length, and then creates recommendations. Recommendations …show more content…
I believe that children should be given the opportunity to learn more about the policies and laws that govern their daily lives. More emphasis within the Australian curriculum should be put upon helping children form opinions for themselves. I believe that this will help the younger generation know more about the world around them, thus better preparing them for their adult lives. As a social worker in training, we are taught that ‘people are experts of their own lives’. Therefore, to an extent, I believe that this is the same for children. However, children’s decisions and opinions upon their own lives, remains limited (McLeod, 2008, p. 50). Children, the same as adults, have knowledge that may be contributed to services that effect them, if participation was better taught within schools and adults were able to listen and take better notice of children’s views. (Nothard et al., 2015, p. 440). While I believe that it is important that children are able to give their views and opinions upon policies that are affecting them, I do also conclude that there are difficulties in doing so. Alison Clark and June Statham (2005) state that ‘adults have uncertainty about how to listen to children’ (Clark & Statham, 2005, p. 45). I believe that this is true, as adults feel entitlement over children, as they have experienced life, more than children have. This entitlement may make adults think that children’s opinions are not intelligible enough to be taken seriously. I think that it is important that children are able to have more of a say in the policies and legislations that affect them. I also believe that child participation should be better taught during early childhood education and that the recommendations of the original article should be taken into account in regards to