Finding the balance: the choreography of participatory research with children and young people

Participatory Research (PR), which places participants at the foreground, is an evolving field spanning several disciplines. This article critiques conceptual tensions surrounding the notion of participation itself and how PR tenets can be engaged with children (under 18). We propose an innovative heuristic framework to be used flexibly by the adult facilitator to aid decision-making when seeking balance between intervention and giving young participants room for expression. It serves as an aide memoire to facilitate cognisance of issues of control and directiveness that could potentially diminish children's voices, containing more explicit emphasis on the necessary movement between modes of adult facilitator involvement than existing PR models. Our proposed modes, 'organic and unbridled', 'organic yet enabling', 'enabled and shaping', are fleshed out and illustrated with reference to our own PR projects. We relate these modes to easily-called-to-mind notions, inspired by the metaphor of the choreography of dance: 'stepping-in'; 'stepping-out'; 'stepping-on-toes'.