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The expansion of research with children offers new opportunities for the development of child-centred practice. Children's participation in research has been championed as a positive way to challenge the processes and practices that affect their everyday lives. Yet opportunities for collaborating with children, and leveraging their voices, remains heavily guided by adult-led priorities. In this chapter, we offer a critique of ‘child-centredness’ and related voice-based and participatory discourses in the absence of a full-fledged engagement with the power imbalances between adults and children. We draw on examples from our research with children on contemporary global challenges (COVID-19 pandemic, health and migration) to expose the ways that adult-led agendas for, and definitions of, participation can affect children's engagement in research. We highlight how children also effect change and display their agency through the sharing of their experiences with adult researchers. The dynamic nature of social change highlights children's considered engagement with contemporary challenges but also the importance of reciprocity and willingness of adults to listen and respond to the issues that children identify as being central to their lives. We attend to the ways our methodological decision-making offers opportunities for leveraging children's perspectives, but also highlight the dangers of reproducing dominant adult/child power relations when seeking to be ‘child-centred’. We conclude by offering some critical questions to prompt further debate in this field, In doing so, we highlight the value of reciprocity and critical reflexivity as necessary first steps towards a more considered engagement with adult/child power relations in ‘child-centred’ research.

Evidence (Barry, 2001; Lansdown, 2010) suggests that children often do not have the opportunity to claim their participation rights and instead the focus of professionals can sometimes be solely on the child's rights to protection or assumed needs. This imbalance results in their voices, views, opinions and input potentially being missed and unheard when concerning decision-making processes that impact on them in their day-to-day lives. This chapter will explore social pedagogical theory and social pedagogical practice, as well as values, children and young people's participation, cultivating empowerment, developing positive and authentic relationships, creating opportunities for holistic learning and working alongside children and young people in a child-centred way to bring about a positive change in their lives and increase their happiness and well-being.

Schools exist because of the children they educate but examples of their voice influencing their education in an authentic manner can be rare. This chapter outlines the importance of pupil voice and defines the key aspects of authenticity. It uses the themes emanating from this definition as examples of establishing practices to support pupil voice in the classroom. Such practices are based upon the findings of a pupil voice study into the experiences of 14–16-year-old children in physical education (PE) lessons. This PE project was driven by the pupils and adult voice was militated in order to enhance the authenticity of the findings. The project empowered children to raise and discuss the issues they deemed important and find their own solutions without steering or influence by their teachers. The implementation of these findings in one school demonstrated the dynamism and potential of learning based upon child-centred practice.

Current global shifts in education towards inclusive early childhood education are deeply engineered by the crisis of educational exclusion. In responding to exclusion, teachers have mainly utilized dominant western theories to plan and implement inclusive teaching. In this chapter, we draw on a non-western philosophy, a Nichiren Buddhist (Soka) philosophy, to provide a ‘kaleidoscopic’ lens through which to create inclusive educational learning spaces that engender full participation of all children. The Soka education philosophy is a humanist concept which can guide teachers when preparing to create inclusive education. The aims of this chapter are threefold: The first is an exploration of the Nichiren Buddhist (Soka) philosophy. The second aim is to highlight how this philosophy can enable teachers to unleash the unlimited potential of children in inclusive learning settings. Thirdly, we argue that grounding early childhood teacher education in this philosophy can help improve the effectiveness of inclusive educational experience for all children.

This chapter aims to further conversations around child-centred practice by considering the potential role of pupil voice within education. It explores the impacts of creating space for authentic pupil consultation in my own primary classroom upon my understanding – as teacher-researcher – of my class' experiences of teaching and learning. It outlines my use of pupil views templates (PVTs) (Wall & Higgins, 2006) to gain insight into children's thoughts, feelings and spoken interactions, and how this informed my professional practice as an educator, in order to move beyond pupil consultation as mere ‘lip-service’, and towards developing more meaningful engagement based on an acknowledgement of children's perspectives, as well as their right to express these views freely in all matters pertaining to them (UNCRC, 1989). As such, this chapter provides an exemplar of the reflections that can be gained through using PVTs to ‘listen’ to children, and the impacts this had upon the co-construction of our classroom culture, with implications for pupils' metacognition, the role of educator as a metacognitive role model and ultimately for children's agency and control over their own learning. Whilst my own use of PVTs is situated within an education context, the description of the ways in which this approach can be used has relevance for professionals in other fields who wish to gain greater insight into children's perceptions and experiences.

This chapter explores the notion that paying regular, systematic attention to children's voices in unstructured, open-ended contexts, such as that offered by forest school, may support genuine child-centred practice. It suggests ways in which such practices may be developed even within structured institutional contexts, such as mainstream school. It notes the tendency of the outcome focused dominant model of education to silence children's voices and explores alternative child-centred approaches to education (such as Reggio Emilia), drawing upon the author's experiences both as a teacher and facilitator of a child-led forest school programme. It explores both forest school research and pedagogical practice that amplifies children's voices. Ultimately, it suggests that the practical application of forest school approaches could spread respectful listening practices beyond education and into other childhood disciplines.

Discussions surrounding a lower voting age and its outcomes have been emerging in Canadian public discourse for over a decade. While discussions surrounding a lower voting age have centred around adults' concerns of young people's maturity, competency and interest in politics the voices of children have frequently been excluded from these conversations. This chapter aims to reinforce a visible sense of child-centred practice in political discourse and spaces. It is important to note that how we come to think about participation can be judged from many different perspectives; however, in this instance, I have had a chance to explore the question through the lens of the young people involved in the Vote 16 Steering Group who identified meaningful participation as a fundamental aspect of the value they saw in the opportunity. This chapter invites us to think about child-centred practice in relation to notions of meaningful participation (meaningfulness) through: (1) the value of the opportunity, (2) understanding change and political efficacy, (3) voice and the vote and (4) political identity.

Whilst there is growing awareness of the case for children and young people's participation in health services and health service research, there is limited evidence on how this apparent commitment to children's right to participate translates into practice.

The chapter, co-authored with and young people, draws on examples from the authors' original research and lived experience to consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and young people's participation in the United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service (NHS). There is evidence of children and young people in the UK becoming more reliant on parents and carers as conduits for engagement and as sources of information during the pandemic. Additionally, some children and young people with special educational needs and disability and other potentially vulnerable groups have engaged less with health services and have been excluded from participating by a move to digital platforms. Conversely online and phone involvement and consultations have led to higher inclusion for others. Adapting by necessity to COVID-19 has highlighted the potential for doing things differently and developing more participatory and inclusive practice in collaboration with children, in the UK and elsewhere. It is critical that children are involved in shaping the development of participation practice which challenges and reshapes institutional practices in health services and beyond.