242 Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 17 No. 3 (2007) ISSN: 1546-2250 Children, Young People and Social Inclusion: Participation for What? Tisdall, E. Kay M. and Davis, John M. and Prout, Alan (2006). Bristol: The Policy Press; 256 pages. $45.12. ISBN 10186134662X (paperback), 101861346638 (hardcover). This book is the outcome of a series of seminars in the United Kingdom on “Challenging ‘Social Inclusion’: Perspectives for and from Children and Young People.” The book’s ideas were further developed at a conference of European youth organizations and young people on “Including Young People: Sharing Good Practice acrossEurope.” Thus the book emphasizes British research and experience, with occasional references to the larger field of child and youth participation in Europe and abroad. As a result, the appeal of many chapters depends on the similarity between the British context from which the lessons from research and practice have been drawn and readers’ own contexts. There are, for example, evaluations of the effectiveness of the Irish National Children’s Strategy, the Learning to Listen guidelines issued by the British government’s Children and Young People’s Unit, and the recommendations in Claiming the Health Dividend, a report on Britain’s National Health Service. For readers working within these policy frameworks, the book’s analyses should have immediate value. Other readers will take from these and other British examples what matches their own policy and practice contexts and goals. Several chapters, however, present theory and research with broad relevance. The editors’ introduction and conclusion define and relate the concepts of “social inclusion,” “social exclusion,” “participation,” “poverty,” “child rights” and “citizenship,” and because these terms have global currency—partly because they are currently exported around the world by the development agencies of Britain and other European Union nations—these reviews have international applications. Michael Gallagher’s and Peter Moss’s chapters on 243 children’s geographies and “children’s spaces” offer ways of understanding the dynamics of place use and power in the institutions of children’s lives, wherever they operate. Liam Cairns’ chapter, which examines the implementation of children’s participation within models of representative versus participative democracy, offers a useful rubric for evaluation anywhere. It also articulates a concern echoed in several other chapters: that governments’ endorsement of child and youth participation in principle can be seen as a double-edged sword. It creates a “permissive environment” within which imaginative and effective models of participation can be introduced, while at the same time puts pressure on governments at every level to be seen to be promoting young people’s participation, regardless of the inclusiveness or quality of the programs that they sponsor or their responsiveness in practice. A distinctive chapter by Gerison Lansdown places this concern and other valuable reflections in the context of programs for children in the developing world. A few chapters present basic research that is also likely to have wide applicability, although its generalizability to other contexts will need to be tested. Chapters by Tess Ridge and by Malcolm Hill and colleagues summarize two qualitative studies of children’s experience of poverty and social disadvantage in England and Scotland. They form significant additions to the limited literature on understanding poverty from young people’s own perspectives. Also very useful, Alan Prout, Richard Simmons and Johnston Birchall review research on why people participate—why they become engaged in the first place, and why they maintain commitment. Their review exposes how little research of this kind has been carried out with children and youth, but drawing on studies with adults, it offers mutual incentives theory as a framework that may productively guide future research with young subjects. For readers in Great Britain, this book as a whole is likely to be highly relevant. Other readers in the European Union will also find themselves on familiar political terrain. For readers who want to reflectively consider the practice of child and youth participation, wherever it occurs, the chapters that synthesize basic theory and research make this book a valuable addition to their libraries. 244 Reviewer Information Chawla, Louise Louise Chawla is a Professor in the College of Architecture and Planning in the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. From...