Participation of young people in decision-making process could be defined in a various forms and on different levels. While all of them means to be participating the process, there could be different rages between them. Started from the formal participation being used by others and finished by youth led initiatives. 

It is not enough to say that young people do or do not participate. There are different degrees to which youth can be involved or can take over responsibility, depending on the local situation, resources, needs and level of experience. In 1969 US based scholar Sherry Phyllis Arnstein presented a deliberately provocative idea taken on the relationship between community and government by using a ladder as a metaphor for increasing access to decision-making power. At the bottom of the ladder of citizen participation, one finds “manipulation” and at the very top of the ladder one find “citizen control”.

Decades later Roger Hart (1992) proposes a model of the so-called “ladder of children’s participation”, which illustrates the different degrees of involvement of children and young people in projects, organisations or communities. Roger Hart defines eight degrees of youth involvement, each of the degrees corresponding to one rung of a ladder. 

In the coming chapter we will discuss ladder that concerns to youth participation and will explore each of them and give comprehensive information about the theory.

Theoretical material

"I participate, you participate, he participates, we participate, you participate...they profit." French student poster in 1968. 

Sociologist Roger Hart wrote a book called Children's Participation. This groundbreaking work put the work of young people and adult allies around the world in the context of a global movement for participation, offering needed guidance and criticism of many efforts. The "Ladder of Children's Participation," also called the "Ladder of Youth Participation," is one of many significant tools from the book.

Roger Hart's Ladder of Participation shows young people-initiated, shared decisions with adults as the top form of young people's participation, followed immediately by young people-initiated and directed.  Let’s see what they are:

Rung 8: Shared decision-making

Projects or ideas are initiated by young people, who invite the adults to take part in the decision-making process as partners.

Rung 7: Young people led and initiated

Projects or ideas are initiated and directed by young people; the adults might get invited to provide any necessary support, but a project can carry on without their intervention.

Rung 6: Adult-initiated, shared decision making

Adults initiate projects but young people are invited to share the decision-making power and responsibilities as equal partners.

Rung 5: Young people consulted and informed

Projects are initiated and run by adults, but young people provide advice and suggestions and are informed how these suggestions contribute to the final decisions or results.

Rung 4: Young people assigned and informed

Projects are initiated and run by adults; young people are invited to take on some specific roles or tasks within the project, but they are aware of what influence they have in reality.

Rung 3: Young people tokenised (tokenism)

Young people are given some roles within projects but they have no real influence on any decisions. The illusion is created (either on purpose or unintentionally) that young people participate, when in fact they have no choice about what they do and how.

Rung 2: Young people as decoration

Young people are needed in the project to represent youth as an underprivileged group. They have no meaningful role (except from being present) and – as happens with any decorations – they are put in a visible position within a project or organisation, so that they can easily be seen by outsiders.

Rung 1: Young people manipulated

Young people are invited to take part in the project, but they have no real influence on decisions and their outcomes. In fact, their presence is used to achieve some other goal, such as winning a local election, creating a better impression of an institution or securing some extra funds from institutions that support youth participation.

Rungs  number 1, 2 and 3 are defined by Hart as a manipulation rungs, while the other 6 are participation rungs and the higher the rung is the more participation are given to the young people. Although it should be stated that the more is the level of participation the more are the responsibilities that are coming with the power, so when young people share the power and are engaged they have to realize the responsibility they care.

The ladder of youth participation can be a very useful tool for practitioners, who want to look critically at how participatory projects or initiatives work in their own communities. But this model can also falsely suggest a hierarchy of degrees of youth participation and can encourage efforts to reach the highest rungs at any price. It is therefore important to remember that the degree to which young people are or should be involved depends on the local situation, on what needs to be achieved, what experience exists, etc. It can sometimes be rather difficult to see precisely what the level of participation is within a project, either due to its complexity or to the fact that there are no clear borders between different rungs.

Useful resources and links, additional literature

A Ladder of Citizen Participation - Sherry R Arnstein

https://lithgow-schmidt.dk/sherry-arnstein/ladder-of-citizen-participation.html

CHILDREN’S PARTICIPATION: FROM TOKENISM TO CITIZENSHIP https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/childrens_participation.pdf

ROGER HART’S LADDER OF PARTICIPATION https://www.cph.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/RogerHartLadderOfParticipation.pdf

ON THE LADDER Compass https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/on-the-ladder

Reddy, N. & K. Ratna (eds.) (2002) “A Journey in Children’s Participation”, The Concerned for Working Children, Bangalore, India. www.workingchild.org 

Video links

A Ladder of Citizen's Participation – bad narration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeuwwWuZ-M4

Levels of Participation - Lynne Cazaly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rj6xyVwR3g 

Open ended questions

What are the difference between Arsteins and Harts ladder theory?

Which rungs of the Harts ladder concerned to the manipulation?

What is the difference between tokenism and decoration?

What is the difference between forth and fifth rungs?

Which of the rungs are most participatory?