Participatory Design of New School Learning Environments

Abstract

This article looks into the legal and psychological aspects of child and youth participation in discussions and decision making on issues relating to their lives and gives an overview of the current trends in participatory development. Participatory design is interpreted within this study as activities that result in participatory action of children in the educational process. Participatory action is characterized in its intentional component and its persistence (reflected in searching for ways of bringing the intention to life) by initiative, consciousness, autonomy and responsibility. Participatory design is regarded as a tool for creating conditions to develop adolescents’ subject position. A new method of engaging children in participatory design of learning environments is offered and implemented in the study. The article describes successively the steps of method implementation and its testing within the framework of Pedagogical Design Studio’s activities.

Keywords

• adolescence
• children’s participation in decision making
• cooperation
• cultural-historical psychology
• development
• participatory approach in education
• participatory design
• subject position