ABSTRACT

Since the mid-1990s, in part due to the accession talks to join the European Union, there are a myriad of activities and projects focused on participatory governance and youth participation in Turkey. These are happening across the nation in a variety of institutional, community and/or informal settings, supported by all kinds of national and international public, private and non-governmental entities. This chapter is based on research that sought to identify and study cases where children/youth are able to exercise agency. We define agency as ‘having the power to make decisions that impact on self and others and to act on them’; and consider participation as a precondition for agency. We are particularly interested in agency directed towards and/or grounded in place.