Children’s Rights Education for the Early Childhood Education and Care Student

Abstract

Children’s rights education is an approach that takes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as its starting point for guiding educators’ decision-making processes, pedagogies and practices. Celebrating its 30-year anniversary in 2019, this international human rights treaty can and should be understood by governments, policymakers, activists, educators and children alike. Since it was adopted in 1989, there have been consistent calls for training and education on children’s rights for all professionals who work with and for children. This chapter draws upon empirical findings from the author’s doctoral study (Long, Children’s rights education in the early years: an exploration of the perspectives of undergraduate students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, 2017) and a selective review of the literature on children’s rights education (CRE) to position the early childhood education and care (ECEC) student as a future duty-bearer under Article 29 of the UNCRC. To consider the implications of this crucial relationship for the rights of infants and young children in ECEC settings, the author also draws upon relevant commentary by the monitoring body of the UNCRC – the Committee on the Rights of the Child, contemporary legal scholarship and, finally, the literature on CRE and human rights education. This commentary is used to examine the meanings a group of undergraduate students – in a BA (Hons) Early Childhood Education and Care program in one higher education institute (HEI) in the Republic of Ireland – ascribe to children’s rights and the ECEC practices they choose to illuminate their views. The findings reveal gaps in knowledge and understanding of the children’s rights framework which suggests the need for CRE that is deeply contextualised to ECEC. More intentional teaching can enable students to understand and apply a child-rights based approach to the care and education of babies and young children.KeywordsChildren’s rightsChildren’s rights educationCREChild rights approach