Transforming Participation

Participatory techniques have established themselves in both project implementation in developing countries and community interventions in industrial countries. Recently, participation has been fashionably dismissed as more rhetoric than substance, and subject to manipulation by agents pursuing their own agendas under cover of community consent. In this important new volume, development and other social policy scholars and practitioners seek to rebut this simplistic conclusion. They show how participation can help produce genuine transformation for marginalized communities. This volume is the first comprehensive attempt to evaluate the state of participatory approaches in the aftermath of the "Tyranny" critique. It captures the recent convergence between participatory development and participatory governance. It revisits the question of popular agency, as well as spanning the range of institutional actors involved--the state, civil society and donor agencies. The volume embeds participation within contemporary advances in development theory.

Do participatory processes open a political space to marginalized groups and individuals? Or do they co-opt and coerce groups to reinforce existing inequitable relations? In an innovative comparative study which breaks with tradition this book explores these questions by looking at Malawi and Ireland.

Young people’s participation is an urgent policy and practice concern across countries and context. This book showcases original research evidence and analysis to consider how, under what conditions and for what purposes young people participate in different parts of Europe. Focusing on the interplay between the concepts of youth, inequality and participation, this book explores how structural changes, including economic austerity, neoliberal policies and new patterns of migration, affect the conditions of young people’s participation and its aims. With contributions from a range of subject experts, including young people themselves, the book challenges current policies and practices on young people’s participation. It asks how young people can be better supported to take part in social change and decision-making and what can be learnt from young people’s own initiatives.

Bringing together theories, ideas, insights and experiences of practitioners and researchers from Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK, this book explores children and young people's involvement in public action. The contributors consider the potential of children and young people's participation to be transformative.

Participation has established itself as a significant approach to project implementation, policy-making and governance in developing and developed countries alike. Recently, however, it has become fashionable to dismiss participation as more rhetoric than substance, and subject to manipulation by agencies and social change agents intent simply on pursuing their own agendas under cover of community consent. In this important new volume, development and other social policy scholars and practitioners seek to rebut this simplistic conclusion, while addressing the problems of power and politics which have beset some approaches to participation. They describe and analyse new experiments in participation from a wide diversity of social contexts that show how, far from being a redundant and depoliticizing concept, participation can -- given certain conditions -- be linked to genuinely transformative processes and outcomes for marginalized communities and people. This volume is the first comprehensive attempt to evaluate the state of participatory approaches in the aftermath of the 'Tyranny' critique. It captures the recent convergence between participatory development and participatory governance, and spans the range of institutional actors involved in these approaches - the state, civil society and donor agencies. It places participatory interventions in a political context, and links them directly to issues of popular agency. The volume embeds participation within contemporary advances in development theory and proposes theoretical and practical ways forward for relocating participation as a genuinely transformative approach. Scholars and practitioners alike, and from a diversity of disciplines and community and development agencies, are likely to find this volume a theoretically illuminating and practically useful source of ideas about how participation can achieve concrete liberatory outcomes.

How can young children play an active role in developing the design of learning environments? What methods can be used to bring together children’s and practitioners’ views about their environment? What insights can young children offer into good designs for these children’s spaces? With the expansion of early childhood education and the move to 'extended schools', more young children will spend more time than ever before in institutions. Based on two actual building projects, this book is the first of its kind to demonstrate the possibilities of including young children’s perspectives in the design and review of children’s spaces. Situated at the heart of the debate about the relationship between the built environment and its impact on children’s learning and wellbeing, Transforming Children’s Spaces provides insights into how young children see their environment discusses children’s aspirations for future spaces develops the 'Mosaic approach' , pioneered by the author, as a method for listening to young children and adults Emphasising the importance of visual and verbal methods of communication, this fascinating book demonstrates how practitioners and young children can articulate their perspectives, and shows how participatory methods can support new relationships between children, practitioners and architects. This book is essential reading for those who work in children's spaces and for those who design them as well as being of general interest to those studying education and childhood studies.

An ideal health care system relies on efficiently generating timely, accurate evidence to deliver on its promise of diminishing the divide between clinical practice and research. There are growing indications, however, that the current health care system and the clinical research that guides medical decisions in the United States falls far short of this vision. The process of generating medical evidence through clinical trials in the United States is expensive and lengthy, includes a number of regulatory hurdles, and is based on a limited infrastructure. The link between clinical research and medical progress is also frequently misunderstood or unsupported by both patients and providers. The focus of clinical research changes as diseases emerge and new treatments create cures for old conditions. As diseases evolve, the ultimate goal remains to speed new and improved medical treatments to patients throughout the world. To keep pace with rapidly changing health care demands, clinical research resources need to be organized and on hand to address the numerous health care questions that continually emerge. Improving the overall capacity of the clinical research enterprise will depend on ensuring that there is an adequate infrastructure in place to support the investigators who conduct research, the patients with real diseases who volunteer to participate in experimental research, and the institutions that organize and carry out the trials. To address these issues and better understand the current state of clinical research in the United States, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation held a 2-day workshop entitled Transforming Clinical Research in the United States. The workshop, summarized in this volume, laid the foundation for a broader initiative of the Forum addressing different aspects of clinical research. Future Forum plans include further examining regulatory, administrative, and structural barriers to the effective conduct of clinical research; developing a vision for a stable, continuously funded clinical research infrastructure in the United States; and considering strategies and collaborative activities to facilitate more robust public engagement in the clinical research enterprise.

There is no doubt, journalism faces challenging times. This book argues that we have to rethink journalism fundamentally. Rather than just focus on the symptoms of the 'crisis of journalism', this collection tries to understand the structural transformation journalism is undergoing.