Children’s Turn to Participate! Educational co-design with children

Abstract

My research Children’s Turn to Participate! Educational co-design with children investigates the role of children and young people in design, and children’s rights to take part and influence the planning, realisation and development of services and milieus directed at them (UN 2009, Pollari 2016). It is a case study that combines research with planning and organising co-design workshops for children and young people (Children’s Turn workshops). This research examines how co-design and design education might promote children’s rights in design. The aim of the Children’s Turn workshops (2014–2016) was to develop methods for fostering the participation of children and young people. They also challenged the designers and manufacturers of products to develop ideas from children and to offer children-based products for a hospital. A pedagogical framework and design tools created for the workshops were one of the outcomes of this research. Those were validated in pilot workshops and brought to the co-design workshops to aid children’s participation. This research suggests co-design together with design education as a solution for changing design practice to support children’s participation in design. The idea of combining design education and co-design, was tested amongst groups of children. Based on the good results of the pilot workshops, final co-design workshops were organized at the museum setting to allow children’s participation in the design of the hospital wear of the New Children’s Hospital in Helsinki.