Conceptual framework for the participation of children in local area planning decision-making processes through primary geography education

Abstract

According to Article 12 of the UNCRC, children have a legal right to have their views heard and acted upon as appropriate. In Ireland, this applies to local planning processes concerning children’s localities whereby legislation was specifically enacted to recognise children as a group who were entitled to participate in the local planning process. However, while provisions are being made at policy level, children’s participation in practice is extremely limited. Furthermore, recent research into the teaching of primary school geography in Ireland has found that didactic and text-book approaches are significant with teachers neglecting to teach about the local area and to use experiential learning methods such as fieldwork. Through a qualitative analysis of current research in primary geography education and children’s participation in the planning process, this research presents a conceptual framework which enables children to participate in the local area planning process in Ireland through primary school geography. This conceptual framework provides a systematic and coherent way of approaching children’s participation and the teaching of primary school geography. The key findings from this research centre around the positioning of schools and particularly the primary geography curriculum (PGC) to be the ‘space’ within which children’s participation can and should occur. Enabling children’s participation in planning processes to occur through the PGC serves to bridge the policy-practice gap pertaining to children’s participation, building their capacity to participate, and ensuring the broadest possible sample of the population are included. It also addresses the policy-practice gap in the teaching of geography by ensuring the teaching of lessons involving experiential methods focused on the local area. This conceptual framework sets out a stepped, progressional approach to enabling children to participate in local area planning decisions by carrying out geographical investigations of their localities.