“It’s almost like official” - Children’s participation as a relational and spatial question

Abstract

In recent years, more attention has been paid to the opportunities that children and young people have for participation in their communities. The present article explores children’s public participation in the Finnish town of Tampere. Tampere was the first town in Finland that had a municipal Children’s Parliament. The organisation of the Parliament is based on electoral and representative democratic principles. The key event in the organisation and action of the Parliament is the General Meeting (Suurkokous), an event organised twice every year in a council hall. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, the paper concentrates on analysing the spatial and intergenerational arrangements of the General Meetings. The results of the study support the emerging body of research indicating that representative models provide possibilities primarily for those children who are already in an advantaged position and have many cultural and social resources.