We draw on Roger Hart’s article for UNICEF in 1992, entitled Children’s Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship, where he defined authentic child participation in civic activity as “the process of sharing decisions which affect one’s life and the life of the community in which one lives” (Hart, 1992, p.5). In his "ladder of participation," Hart considers the ways in which young people are engaged in activities in relation to adults. 

We additionally build on the research of Shepherd Zeldin, Brian Christens, and Jane Powers, who have defined youth-adult partnership as the practice of, “(a) multiple youth and multiple adults deliberating and acting together; (b) in a collective fashion; (c) over a sustained period of time; (d) through shared work; (e) intended to promote social justice, strengthen an organization and/or affirmatively address a community issue” (Zeldin, Christens, & Powers, 2012, p.388). This definition resonates with our experiences working in and studying OST programs, as well as the perspectives of many contributors to our volume.

In out-of-school time programs, just as in schools, youth-adult partnerships require everyone to push against hierarchical relationships and pervasive, negative constructions of youth as incapable, “at risk,” or “in need of control.” Striving toward partnership necessitates an interrogation of how we conceive of youth development, and relatedly requires us to shift our expectations to community development, collective wellbeing, and societal goals rather than the current preoccupation with individual development and outcomes.