on a study or project with a specific group of young people, where young people seek to make changes for their lives and others. Chapter 9 considers five cases of youth activism in political squats, to demonstrate how young people’s activism aims to counteract austerity measures and economic crisis in Italy. The chapter focuses on young people’s collective reactions to inequality through self-organisation and prefigurative actions. Chapter 10 likewise looks at young people’s self-organisation in public spaces. The author explores how young people seek to turn abandoned urban spaces into spaces of participation and the accompanying challenges for the young people when they self-organise. In Chapter 11, the space for participation changes from a public to an individual and institutional space, with an analysis of how young people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder struggle in their meetings with their statutory caseworkers. The study shows the young people’s struggles to be considered active participants in decision making concerning crucial matters in their lives. Chapter 12 describes how young asylum seekers in the UK worked collectively to make their experiences heard and visible within a hostile and alienating public space.
Part IV addresses how young people’s participation can be supported through specific approaches and methodologies within research and practice. Research on young people’s participation has a strong tradition of developing methodologies that seek to enable young people to express and explore their views (Pink, 2007). This section builds on that tradition, to consider which methodologies appear effective in supporting young people’s participation – and potential innovations. Chapter 13 reviews the pernicious challenges for young people’s participation activities, such as tokenism, lack of impact on decision making, and criticisms that the young people involved are unrepresentative. It then explores examples of youth-led research, which address many of these challenges, due to young people being recognised as generators of knowledge, with legitimacy and credibility. Chapters 14 and 15 both present and explore new methodological approaches to support young people’s participation in research. Chapter 14 discusses the methodology ‘journey mapping’ and illustrate how the methodology can support young people to form and share their often multifaceted experiences when taking part in participatory projects. Chapter 15 explores how film making can provide a playful framework for young people to express their non-verbal, embodied and visual experiences living in rural settings. Finally, Chapter 16 draws on the methodologies of participatory action research and critical utopian action research to argue for transformative learning to be central to participation processes for young people at risk of marginalisation. The chapter underlines that participatory processes necessitate reciprocal learning for both the young people and adults involved and that this, in turn, redresses power imbalances and engenders co-inquiry and mutual reciprocity in relationships of respect. The editors’ concluding remarks in Chapter 17 complete the book.
Notes
1Broadly, the book address young people between the ages of 12 and 24 (see www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/youth/youth-definition and www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/youth/fact-sheets/youth-definition.pdf [Accessed 18 January 2019]).
2See www.lifechangestrust.org.uk/care-experienced-young-people/champions-boards [Accessed 11 December 2019].
3See www.un.org/development/desa/youth/news/2019/10/youth-delegates
4See www.youtube.com/watch?v=11FCyUB81rI [Accessed 11 December 2019].
5See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/participation [Accessed 31 January 2020].
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