Children’s participation rights as lived capabilities: experiences from early childhood education and care in Wales

Children’s participation rights are firmly embedded within early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy; however, research continues to show a persistent gap between formal participation rights and children’s everyday experiences, particularly for very young and pre-verbal children. Drawing on qualitative data from multiple case studies conducted across three ECEC settings in Wales, this paper examines how children experience their participation rights in practice. Using naturalistic observations and child-centred, play-based methods, the study foregrounds children’s multimodal and embodied participation claims, including gesture, movement, affect, and refusal. Interpreted through the Capability Approach, the findings show that participation was not realised through child expression alone but depended on adult recognition, relational responsiveness, and institutional conditions. The paper reframes participation as a lived capability, highlighting how everyday ECEC practices enable or constrain children’s participation rights. These findings offer important implications for understanding how participation rights are realised through recognition, relationships, and institutional conditions.