Embracing the UNCRC in Wales (UK): policy, pedagogy and prejudices

Abstract

Most countries are signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). In 1999, the Government of Wales was devolved from the UK, and in 2011 the “Children and Young Persons Rights Measure” put the UNCRC as the basis of all its work. Any programme introduced in schools should therefore promote the UNCRC. To address this, we implemented the Philosophy for Children (P4C) in Schools Project in 64 schools and monitored teacher and pupil responses. This paper reports on a meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative data that suggests that the models of childhood held by teachers impacts on how they respond to the UNCRC. Teachers who held models of children as “innocent”, “evil”, “blank slates” or “developing” found it hard to embrace the UNCRC. Teachers who were authoritarian, punitive and epistemologically directive also questioned the UNCRC. In contrast, teachers who practised rational authority and restorative approaches to wrongdoing and held a social competency model of the child embraced P4C, a democratic, community of inquiry approach to learning that puts pupil voice centre stage. We argue that P4C can provide a practical pedagogic tool to support the implementation of the UNCRC and has the potential to address barriers that arise from widely held deficit models of childhood.