Hart’s Ladder of Youth Participation
Hart’s Ladder (the Ladder) serves as an assessment, reflection and aspirational tool to assist schools in their efforts to strengthen student-adult partnerships.
Hart’s Ladder of Youth Engagement in a School or Classroom Context
The ladder rung on which schools, classrooms, groups, or activities lie will depend on a variety of factors, e.g topic, time, experience of students and adults in shared decision-making, etc. As we move up the ladder, our capacity for meaningful youth-adult partnerships grows.
Self Assessment Matrix
Youth participation is a process - a way of being in community with students in a school environment. Use this matrix to assess your classroom/school’s readiness for youth participation. For each context, mark the box of the correlating ladder step that is most consistent at your school. Score individually or as a team to promote discourse and goal setting as you continually work to strengthen student voice in your school.
The descriptions and reflection questions below can be used to assist your team in completing the Self-Assessment Matrix. As you reflect on youth participation in the classroom and school community contexts, consider the following:
Degrees of Participation
8) Young people-initiated, shared decisions with adults. This happens when projects or programs are initiated by young people and decision-making is shared between young people and adults. These projects empower young people while at the same time enabling them to access and learn from the life experience and expertise of adults. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth/adult partnerships.
7) Young people-initiated and directed. This step is when young people initiate and direct a project or program. Adults are involved only in a supportive role. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth-led activism or informed-action projects.
Reflection Questions for 8-7
- In what areas of your school community are students already initiating projects and decisions?
- How can your school community use what you’ve learned in those areas to create more spaces for youth participation?
- What tensions have arised in the process of moving toward shared decision making?
- How does your school community process and come to consensus around these tensions?
Degrees of Participation
6) Adult-initiated, shared decisions with young people. Occurs when projects or programs are initiated by adults but the decision-making is shared with the young people. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth participatory action research.
5) Consulted and informed. Happens when young people give advice on projects or programs designed and run by adults. The young people are informed about how their input will be used and the outcomes of the decisions made by adults. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth advisory councils.
4) Assigned but informed. This is where young people are assigned a specific role and informed about how and why they are being involved. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth on ILT’s or other boards.
Reflection Questions for 6-4
- What opportunities exist right now where student voice can be shifted from advisory to participatory?
- What examples of youth participation currently exist in your school community?
- How do students feel in those spaces? How do you know?
- Think about a time you’ve participated on a committee or advisory group. What made that experience meaningful for you?
PAUSE: When we consider the Triangle of Student Voice, the foundation of “Listening” begins with the 4th rung of Hart’s Ladder. Rungs 1-3 reflect an absence of student voice.
Degrees of Participation
3) Tokenism. When young people appear to be given a voice, but in fact have little or no choice about what they do or how they participate. This rung of the ladder reflects adultism.
2) Decoration. Happens when young people are used to help or "bolster" a cause in a relatively indirect way, although adults do not pretend that the cause is inspired by young people. This rung of the ladder reflects adultism.
1) Manipulation. Happens where adults use young people to support causes and pretend that the causes are inspired by young people. This rung of the ladder reflects adultism.
0) No Student Voice.
Reflection Questions for 3-0
- What barriers are currently preventing student voice and engagement in your school community?
- What beliefs do you hold about the value of student voice? How are these beliefs showing up in your school community?
- What impact do these practices have on students?
- What impact do these practices have on students’ school experience?
- What impact might these practices have on relationships with students?
- What opportunities exist right now for student voice to shift from non-participatory to advisory?