Abstract
Children have the right to a voice, to education and to education about their rights, as outlined in Article 12 and Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Child rights-based education can support children to be empowered with critical agency and exposed to connection to the wider world, better equipping them to become young global citizens and act in ways that demonstrate empathy and commitment to diversity, dignity, and equality. To obtain this goal, education systems must be aligned to foster these attributes and empower children to develop and exercise the capabilities that will best serve them in childhood as well as adulthood. This paper considers how we can support the empowerment and capabilities development of children through child rights-focused education using an integrated framework of empowerment, capabilities (Sen, 1999), and social constructivist (Vgotsky, 1978) education. Building on the foundations laid in the development and evolution of children’s rights, setting out the theoretical underpinnings and drawing on a case study of a rights-based education project, this paper will consider how rights-based education can be feasible and beneficial.
Highlights
Children have the right to learn about their rights; they have the right to be supported in exercising those rights so that they can participate in decision-making that will impact their futures
By building on the foundations laid in the development and evolution of children’s rights, and weaving this together with the theoretical underpinnings of social constructivism (Vgotsky, 1978), capabilities (Sen, 2000; Nussbaum, 2003), and empowerment (Alsop et al, 2006) we propose an educational approach to child rights that will enable children to both understand their own rights and responsibilities in their childhood lives as well as prepare them to meet the demands they will face in their adult lives
This study focused on two countries with quite different contexts for child rights and education: Canada and Uganda
Summary
Children have the right to learn about their rights; they have the right to be supported in exercising those rights so that they can participate in decision-making that will impact their futures. The diversity of contexts lends to an exploration of how this theoretical application of a pedagogical model of rights-based education may be adapted to local diverse contexts Both countries have ratified the UNCRC and have policies that support promotion, protection, and fulfilment of children’s rights, including a child’s right to be educated on rights, but Canada represents a high income country while Uganda is a low income country. Both countries grapple with their inherited colonial legacies and both include broad cultural diversity. We will refer to findings and observations based on our 2018 study, this paper explores a much broader perspective on the role of the theoretical concepts implied in building rights-based approaches more centrally into curriculum and discusses ways to fill research gaps in child rights-focused education
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