Participation is a very topical issue. But not everyone understands the same thing. Some already consider voting in the Eurovision Song Contest to be an act of codetermination. Others think of the term as referring to referendums in which all eligible voters can participate. Even in social professions, there is by no means unanimity about what participation exactly means. Therefore, in this chapter we want to clarify what participation means and how different it can be and how it can be graded. In order to create clarity for the technical discussion in social professions and to make it easier for students and specialists to find their way around, we have developed the model of the participation pyramid. It depicts the broad spectrum of participation in the social area and fits all fields of action. We first explain the structure of the model using various activities around the topic of playgrounds. Then, using a typical situation from child and youth welfare, we will show how the participation pyramid can be used in practice - in order to analyze previous work and to promote participation with new approaches.