ABSTRACT
This introductory section focuses on the concepts of voice and agency and how young people’s participation can be understood in relation to them. It explores how we might reimagine ‘agency’, especially for adolescents who face marginalisation on the basis of gender and other social identities, and the different spaces and scales in which adolescents exercise agency. It also considers how an intersectional lens can nuance understanding of the different expressions and exercises of agency by adolescents. This discussion sets the scene and provides context for the case studies that feature in this section of the volume, which range from a reflection on young people’s involvement in a children’s parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo to local activism by adolescents in a favela in Brazil to improve their community.
