Municipal urban transformation through children’s participation : A comparative study of eight municipalities in Skåne

Abstract: The Convention of the Rights of the Child has become law in Sweden, entailing municipalities to adapt to the pillars of the convention, one of them being children’s right to participate. Due to the Swedish planning process, the convention is overruled by other planning- and building laws, meaning that municipal practitioners are free to adapt the convention on their own terms. This thesis aims to explore through qualitative comparative analysis how children are included in planning processes in an urban, municipal and regional context. By interviewing practitioners from eight municipalities in Skåne, this thesis identifies what enables or challenges practitioners to purposefully initiate and perform urban transformation with children as active participants in decision-making in urban development projects. The results show that evaluation and feedback-loops are important to acknowledge throughout projects, not only as a final subsequential step. Municipal practitioners have to identify strong intentions early on in projects and have to decide upon what role children should have in projects. Children can either have consulting roles for specific projects, or the approach could have a more soft-value focus, highlighting the democratic learning process for children and empowering them to become future community-builders as they grow up. The results also show that networks are a crucial component to working towards more participatory activities and projects with children as active stakeholders. This embraces collaborative planning ideals and strengthens the case of including more stakeholders and agents in planning processes.