Hart's Ladder of Participation

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 children could be characterised as non-participation rather than as belonging to the higher steps on the ladder or what he calls “real participation’’. Under the category of non participation there are 3 subcategories. Manipulation which is the lowest rung in the ladder of participation which states that children do as directed without understanding of purpose for the activities. Secondly is decoration where children understand the purpose but have no input in how they are planned. Last at the non participation category, Tokenism, shows an increase in participation where children may be consulted with minimal opportunities for feedback.
Moving on to the category of the degree of participation we are faced with rung 4 which is called assigned, but informed. At this rung adults led the activities but children understand the purpose having a decision-making process and a role. As you move on, on the ladder, you will come across rung 5 which is the consulted and informed face which states that youth are consulted and informed about how their input will be used and the outcomes of adult decisions. As I stated, as you go up the ladder the degree of participation increases. At rung 6 at the activities, decision making is shared with youth,

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