Youth participation is and has been a concept with many considerations, meanings and forms of application, both nationally and internationally. In order to ascertain the evolution of the main structures of youth participation, this article starts with the frames that have motivated this participation in Europe, and then it analyses the evolution of some of the participative youth structures in Catalonia in recent decades: local and municipal youth councils. The article also examines some of the longstanding challenges of youth participation, which aim to overcome the structuring of traditional channels of participation and generate other ways of taking part in everyday community life

This article is part of the research project entitled “Proyecto HEBE. El empoderamiento de los jóvenes: análisis de los momentos, espacios y procesos que contribuyen al empoderamiento juvenil” of the State RDI Programme “Retos de la Sociedad 2013”, MINECO (EDU2013-42979-R)