Measuring Children's Participation: a Person-Centered Analysis of Children's Views

There is a need to identify meaningful measures of the right to participate that embrace both heterogeneity among children and the diverse contexts in which participation is realized. To date, the literature that combines contextual and personal variation in participation is limited. Using a person-oriented approach, this study explored heterogeneity among children in relation to their perception of participation in four domains - home, school, local community and the country. The data came from a representative sample of 10- and 12-year old students (N = 2339) in schools in Albania who participated in the 3rd wave of the International Survey of Children's Well-being. Latent profile analyses identified four groups of students, based on their participatory preferences along two dimensions of participation - perceived decision-making and respect. Two overall patterns emerged: (a) students whose endorsement of participation was consistent across all domains but varied in intensity (high level of endorsement vs. moderate) and (b) students whose endorsement of participation varied both across domains and levels of intensity (low vs. moderate vs. high). As expected, profiles defined by greater participation differed on a number of demographic characteristics (e.g., higher proportion of girls, greater proportion of students from families with higher socio-economic status). However, contrary to expectations, many profiles were not consistently related to children's subjective well-being or satisfaction with life domains. The importance of these findings for targeted initiatives to promote participation among children in transitioning states is discussed.