Handbook of Children's Rights: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Abstract

Book Reviews 184 Handbook of Children’s Rights: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives Martin Ruck, Michele Peterson-Badali, and Michael Freeman, editors (2017). New York: Routledge, 618 pages. ISBN: 978-1-84872-478-5 (hardback); ISBN: 978-1-84872-479-2 (paperback); ISBN: 978-1-315-76630-0 (ebook) At the beginning of this review, I need to disclose that, with my colleague Willem van Vliet—, I authored a chapter in this latest edition of the Handbook of Children’s Rights. It represents, however, only 17 out of this volume’s 618 pages, so that I was largely able to review this book with the eyes of a new reader. When I received my copy of the book and began to read other chapters, I realized that many of them are relevant to readers of Children, Youth and Environments who already apply a rights perspective in their work, as well as readers with a general interest in knowing how the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to the environmental dimension of children’s lives. I am writing this review with an emphasis on these chapters. For readers who want to ground their work historically, there is a fine opening chapter on “The History of Children’s Rights” by Peter Stearns that traces evolving ideas about human rights, their extension to children in the nineteenth century, and the development of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by the United Nations in 1989, with a few provisions added since that date. The Convention defines “children” as people under the age of 18, thus covering the periods of infancy through adolescence. Today, the United States is the only member state of the United Nations that has not ratified the Convention, but this does not prevent child advocacy organizations, schools, local governments and other groups in U.S. civil society from committing to child rights principles. In other countries, civil society organizations have an obligation to honor children’s rights in their practice. Other basic chapters include “The Convention on the Rights of the Child After 25 Years” by Ursula Kilkelly, “Children’s Rights and Well-Being” by Asher Ben-Arieh and Noam Tarshish, “Children’s Voices about Children’s Rights” by Martin Ruck and others, and perspectives on children’s rights from the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, economics, and neurodevelopment. Authors include many leading names in these fields. Several chapters on children’s rights in different settings of their lives have implications for the physical provision of spaces for children. “Health and Children’s Rights” by Priscilla Alderson covers not only hospitals and other healthcare settings but also children’s rights to safety and protection from violence, pollution and other environmental risks. “Implementing Children’s Rights in Schools” by Katherine Covell, Brian Howe, and Anne McGillivray shares results from a longitudinal evaluation that covers nearly a decade of the Rights, Respect and Responsibility initiative in schools in Hampshire, England that gives students a democratic voice in all school practices. Although most practices involve school rules, codes of conduct, curricula, and classroom functioning, the initiative extends to the physical Book Reviews 185 environment such as decisions about school renovations. Outcomes include notable improvements in student motivation and behavior, student attendance, teacher satisfaction, and student scores on standardized tests, with the most disadvantaged children making the greatest gains. “Children’s Education Rights: Global Perspectives” by Laura Lundy, Karen Orr and Harry Shier makes the case for accessible, safe and well-provisioned schools. “Children’s Right to Play” by Stuart Lester advocates a radical revision of the way adults think about play, space, and rights, given that wherever children are is where they play, whether it is a designated “play space” or not. Lester stops short of sharing specific ideas about how the design of mundane city spaces, such as a bus stop, could accommodate children’s inherent playfulness, but he invites readers to re-imagine spaces from this perspective. Although I am sympathetic to his argument, as a design researcher I need to note that James Gibson’s concept of “affordances,” and later work by ecological psychologists such as Edward Reed about how affordances are...