Children’s Rights to, in and through Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Children’s rights in education incorporate many challenges in terms of both implementation and the pedagogical and social change opportunities they bring. First, ensuring access for all to quality education, regardless of characteristics like gender, migrant status, disability status, socio-economic status, ethnic background, family language etc., is a global concern. Second, effective implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) in schools – whether protecting them from discrimination and violence or creating a spirit of mutual understanding and acceptance, or fostering learning based on participatory pedagogies and structures for greater social justice – remains a challenge for the 21st century school. Finally, the ambition to enable children to become genuine agents of change capable of responding to today’s challenges in a globalised world, in all its complexity and diversity, while respecting the rights of all, raises many questions which the field of education faces now and will increasingly do so in the future. Exploring the multidimensional relationships between children’s rights and education, this article aims to give a clear picture of the field globally, through the prism of diversity, participation and social transformation as challenges for research and practice. Its aims are threefold: addressing the right of the child to, in and through education. First, the main obstacles to accessing education worldwide are identified; the issue of producing an inclusive, rights-infused environment in schools is then examined; finally, the transformative dimension of education and rights-education is discussed.