Child participation is a concept that has recently significantly influenced the pedagogical field.
This master's thesis investigates how participation is understood and implemented in pedagogical
practice, using the example of the children's parliament as one of the programs for ensuring child
participation.
In the theoretical part, we begin with a brief historical overview to demonstrate that there are
various perspectives on the child/childhood, which are reflected in the interactions between
children and adults and are one of the key conditions for ensuring participation. We defined the
term participation, continued with the conceptual definition, and based it on the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (1989) and several important authors whose models of participation show that
there are different levels of child participation. Given the lack of a single definition of the concept,
we then proposed our own and placed it in the context of education. We analyzed some important
educational documents to see how participation is understood in them and compared what is
written with insights from practice through research. We briefly presented the obstacles that may
limit participation and the benefits that the concept brings. Further, we focused on child
participation in everyday school life and activities, providing a detailed presentation of the
children's parliament program as a method of ensuring participation.
In the empirical part, we presented the results obtained by interviewing three mentors of children's
parliaments and three pupils who are actively involved in the parliament from two primary schools
in the Posavje region. We found that the mentors have a relatively good understanding of
participation, while the pupils have a slightly lesser understanding. Both mentors and pupils better
understand participation and its importance in the school context. We found that mentors poorly
recognize opportunities for participation in educational documents. However, it is positive that
mentors recognize the role of children as competent beings with rights who can influence school
life and work. We also found that mentors and pupils are aware of the importance of the parliament,
seeing it as a program where children can express their opinions, which are considered by adults.
They mention some barriers (such as time, adults' views on children, and the pupils themselves)
that affect the parliament's success, but they also identify some advantages that the program brings
to individuals, the school, and the wider community.. We found that both parliaments operate
similarly at the school level. In both cases, only upper-grade pupils are involved, and only those
actively involved in the parliament engage with the topic, while most other pupils and school staff
are largely excluded. In both cases, there is a lack of cooperation with the school leadership.
Children are involved in various stages of the parliament: planning, implementation, and
evaluation. At the municipal level, the parliament is realized through workshops involving pupils
and mentors who address the annual parliament theme in various ways. The parliament continues
at the national level, where conclusions are presented. We found a difference in opinions between
mentors and pupils regarding adults' consideration of children's suggestions. Most mentors doubt
that adults genuinely listen and consider them, while pupils are more positive about this. Lastly,
we found that mentors see their role in encouraging and guiding children and feel they need more
knowledge and skills for better parliament functioning. Based on the responses, we compared the
practice of the children's parliament at the school level with three models of participation.
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