Participation as the Focus of Intervention:  Cultural Diversity and Universal Characteristics

• Participation as a construct can be applied on all ecological levels from participation for individual children in their everyday life to participation for all as a societal goal. It is defined in the ICF-CY as involvement in a life situation. Participation is occurring at the nodal point between children and their environments. Contexts vary with socio-economical standards, culture and geographical characteristics and thus also the expressions of participation. This presentation will discuss cultural diversity in children’s participation in relation to the universal characteristics of participation defined as “being there” and participation defined as “degree of engagement while being there”. The utility of the ICF-CY as a tool to analyze universal characteristics and cultural diversity in conditions for, and actual experiences of, participation are examined in findings from five studies: 1) Maxwell et al. have analyzed national, regional and local educational policy documents in Scotland and Sweden regarding children in need of special support  in relation to conditions for participation and participation; 2) Ståhl et al. have linked and compared ICF-CY codes to information regarding children’s health in Child Health Care and School Health Care and analyzed whether biomedical or participation information is the focus of the information; 3) Adolfsson et al. have collected and compared data from respondents in Sweden, the USA, and Portugal concerning what professionals consider to be important everyday situations for child participation; 4) Klang et al. has studied domains of participation and environment related to child and caregiver interaction in a Russian context to identify factors related to participation; and 5) Ullenhag et al. have studied participation in  leisure activities and  leisure activity preferences  of Swedish children and compared with data from the Netherlands and Canada using the same questionnaire.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Participation

ICF-CY

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