Children's Participation Rights Research Articles

Constructing child participation in early years classrooms: An exploration from Wales

AbstractThis paper addresses the research problem that arises from evidence that, despite supportive policy contexts, enactment of pedagogies that attend to young children's participation rights in classroom settings is highly variable. We report our exploration of the ways in which the child, and child participation are constructed in early education settings in Wales, where legislation and policy around children's rights has been a key feature of the Welsh Government agenda post‐devolution. Data were gathered via a qualitative online bilingual (English and Welsh) survey offered via email to teachers of children aged 3–7 in Wales. The overarching research question of the project was: How do teachers of children 3–7 years understand and enact the notion of participation as it relates to the children they teach? Data analysis focused on research participants' apparent constructions of the children they teach and their capabilities, and unpacked the ways in which these constructions relate to the reported opportunities for participation. The discussion is informed by the notion of the threshold concept, described by Meyer & Land as akin to a portal that opens new and previously inaccessible ways of thinking. We consider the extent to which the conceptual construction of the capable child maybe a threshold concept in shaping the realisation of children's participation rights in educative contexts.

Promoting Self-Reliance Education through Child Participation Rights for 3-4 Year-Olds

The approach of child participation is a significant perspective for fostering self-reliance education, grounded in the trust teachers place in children. This approach empowers children, creating favorable conditions for decision-making and choice. Investigation into the current status of self-reliance education for 3-4 year-olds in several preschools within Hanoi reveals that children's self-reliance predominantly resides at a moderately developed level. These findings are influenced by several factors, notably the teacher's flexibility and creativity in tailoring appropriate approaches – including objectives, content, methods, forms, and interventions – to each child's individuality and the practical conditions of the school and local context. This study proposes eight self-reliance education strategies for 3-4 year-olds based on the child participation rights approach. These strategies are aligned with the characteristics of children aged 3-4, ensuring target-oriented, systematic, developmental, feasible, practical, and age-appropriate methods, as well as organizing playful and educational activities within preschool settings.

영아 참여권 실현을 위한 보육교사의 지원 경험 탐색

Objectives This study aimed to investigate how daycare teachers support toddlers' participation rights and to identify challenges and needs in the process. Methods Qualitative research method was applied to select 12 childcare teachers from S and C cities as research participants. The study involved conducting a first group interview and a second individual interview in a semi-structured format, as well as conducting phone interviews when additional information was needed. Results Childcare teachers who work with toddlers provided opportunities for them to express themselves and make decisions, and tried to understand their intentions. They also acted as representatives of the toddlers wishes to others and provided basic information on issues that affect the children. However, they faced difficulties in guaranteeing children's participation rights due to a lack of specific knowledge and experience, developmental limitations of young children, and challenging circumstances. They discussed specific improvement needs for the realization of children's participation rights, such as creating an environment that better reflects individual needs and improving teacher education opportunities for continued reflection and better understanding. Conclusions The study confirms that childcare teachers support toddlers’ participation rights in a child-centered way. However, they experience difficulties due to internal and external factors and have clear demands for improvement. It is crucial to continuously improve the childcare environment based on practical information related to supporting toddlers’participation rights ,to ensure a supportive environment for toddlers’ participation rights.

The Representation of Children's Participation in Guidelines for Planning and Designing Public Playspaces: A Scoping Review with "Best Fit" Framework Synthesis.

For children, meaningful participation in community life includes being able to access places for play. Such community playspaces are potentially important for all children, including those with disabilities. Yet, children are rarely asked for their views on the design of playspaces, which can further contribute to exclusionary practices and undermine children's rights to share their views on matters that affect them. In this scoping review, we aim to analyze guidelines and identify strategies for supporting children's participation rights when planning public playspaces. Guidelines are practical tools used by local policymakers when creating community playspaces, which are important sites for children's outdoor play. In total, forty-two guidelines were identified that addressed children's participation rights, along with community involvement. Qualitative evidence synthesis with a "best fit" framework approach was used, informed by Lundy's model of children's participation. The findings revealed the importance of initial community involvement as a critical prerequisite. Strategies for children's participation mostly concerned "space and voice" (for children of diverse abilities), with little attention paid to giving their views due weight. This evidence shows that there is a significant gap in knowledge surrounding policy development and implementation to support adults and children to cooperate equally in designing playspaces. Future directions for research in children's participation require a focus on combined community-children participation approaches in public playspace design. Such work could strengthen and facilitate the role of adults as bearers of the duty to implement the rights of children. This review generated inclusive strategies in planning public playspaces, which could support local policymakers in this complex multi-layered process.

A human rights based approach to the global children's rights crisis: A call to action

AbstractChildren are not responsible for diseases, natural disasters, political conflicts, and wars; yet, children generally suffer the most. Although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) is one of the most ratified world treaties, ample evidence of violations of children's rights exists in reports on the devastating effects of climate change, the COVID‐19 pandemic, and armed conflicts (e.g., Afghanistan, Haiti, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen) including abuse, abduction, becoming child soldiers, death, early marriages, family separation, loss of schooling, malnutrition, neglect, poverty, sexual violence, and trafficking, leading to traumatic short‐ and long‐term academic, emotional, psychological, and physical consequences. This article highlights a child‐rights based approach to the global crisis: (1) sounding an alarm for immediate and greater attention of governments to address children's rights violations and (2) calling multi‐disciplinary scholars to redouble their efforts toward freely sharing their findings, partnering with policy makers and stakeholders, collecting difficult to obtain data, and putting their knowledge into action in preventive and intervention measures to empower the implementation of children's protection and participation rights in the home, school, community, nation, and globally. The global multi‐faceted children's rights crisis requires urgent individual and collective action to make children's rights a global reality.

PUSAT KEGIATAN FORUM ANAK TINGKAT PROVINSI DI BANJARBARU BERKONSEP PLAYSCAPE

Forum Anak is a children's organization assisted by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia through the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection whose role is to bridge communication and interaction between the government and children throughout Indonesia in the context of fulfilling children's participation rights. In its implementation, Forum Anak South Kalimantan Province needs a facilitiy to hold organizational activities. Currently, the implementation of the South Kalimantan Provincial Children's Forum is facilitated by the secretariat room at the South Kalimantan Province Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Service (DP3A). However, this facility has not been able to optimally accommodate the activities of the South Kalimantan Provincial Children's Forum and has not become a facility that can accommodate activities for the use of leisure time through channeling children's interests and talents. Through the use of the playscape concept and an architectural psychology approach, the design is expected to be able to facilitate Forum Anak activities, increase community contributions in fulfilling children's rights and protection in South Kalimantan Province. , and accommodate complaints and assist children with the role of a forum. children as peer counselors, through public spaces in them which are designed by taking into account the principles of child-friendly space, flexibility and inclusiveness.

The Key to Translation: An Examination of Children’s Human Rights Under Government Care and Protection in Manchester and Santa Cruz, Jamaica

According to the Care and Protection Act of Jamaica (2004), protection and provisional rights have historically taken precedence over the participation rights of children – that is, the right to freely express views and maintain a voice in decisions that affect them. To fulfill the participation rights of children, as outlined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), government organizations are encouraged to develop practices that optimize the individual freedom, autonomy, and views of children. I conducted an ethnographic study of the practices used to address the human rights and social needs of abused and neglected children placed under government care and protection in Manchester, Jamaica. My ethnographic research reveals how government staff and caretakers prioritized children’s participation rights, giving them input into their standard of care. As such, it illustrates the process of “vernacularization,” which refers to the translation of global human rights ideas to socially relevant norms in communities.

Reflection on the Implementation of Children's Participation Rights (Based on Lundy's Participation Model)

Child participation is the involvement of children in actions and decision-making processes regarding issues that affect their lives. This study reflects the results of a study on the implementation of children's participation rights, based on four meaningful elements of participation based on the Lundy model, including Voice, Space, Influence, and Audience (Lundy, 2007). So far, studies on participation have focused on the space and forms of child participation. The research used a qualitative approach with the case of the Children's Forum in East Jakarta. The main informants of the research were the members of the Children's Forum. Based on the findings in the field, the practice of children's participation puts forward the provision of spaces for participation and the expression of children's voices, while the government has not provided a mechanism to follow up on children's voices. Children have been allowed to speak out in public spaces, but the follow-up and impact of children's involvement remain minimal so that children have not enjoyed the impact of participation as expected by children. This finding illustrates that the government and society in general still view children as individuals who cannot yet be involved and do not have the capacity for the decision-making process in the public space.

Progressing children’s rights and participation: Utilising rights‐informed resources to guide policy and practice

AbstractSocial policy in Australia and internationally, that is focused on improving children's safety and well‐being, increasingly makes implicit or explicit reference to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Concomitantly, children and young people's participation is more widely acknowledged as being key to ensuring policies, programmes and services reflect their views and lived experience. The non‐government sector, along with statutory bodies like the National and State‐based Children's Commissions in Australia, have led the way in advocating for children's participation, including the development of resources to assist in facilitating this. Little is known, however, about the nature, scope and extent of such resources nor the evidence informing them. This article reports the findings of a scoping review of rights‐informed resources and academic articles that provide a sound rationale and “good practice” information, education and/or professional learning about children's participation rights, in particular. The findings highlight some of the tensions and possibilities between the rhetorical aspirations of participation and existing practice. The analysis is intended to support the efforts of organisations endeavouring to improve their understanding and approaches to embedding children's rights, including participation in decision making and other matters of interest or concern to them.

The perceptions of early childhood children and parents towards children's participation rights: ‘Yes, I and I Disagree!’

In this study, the primary purpose is to analyse early childhood children's and their parents’ perceptions towards ‘children's participation rights. Accordingly, this study applies a phenomenology model pattern which is one of the qualitative research approaches. Fifteen children between 48 and 72 months and one of the parents (mother or father) participated in this study. The semi-structured interview technique was selected to collect data. Content analysis was applied to analyse the data, and specific codes and themes were created. The findings obtained from data analysis were discussed with the participation ladder proposed by Roger Hart.

Entrenching children's participation through UNCRC Incorporation in Scotland

ABSTRACT In March 2021, the Scottish Parliament unanimously adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill (Incorporation Bill). This article explores the ways in which this law could fulfil children's participation rights in Scotland based on the exercise of UNCRC Article 12 coupled with Article 5, a child's right to be heard in line with their evolving capacity. It begins by introducing the basic concept of children's participation rights before constructing participation as a right of emancipation that is two-dimensional, reflecting both the individual and collective dimensions of a child's right to be heard. To develop the first dimension of the emancipatory right to participation, the article focuses on a child's ability to engage their individual right to participate in private legal proceedings. The article then looks at how the views of children and young people have been included in collective decision-making processes following adoption of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, namely views gathered through children's rights impact assessments. The overarching purpose is to demonstrate how the direct incorporation of the UNCRC can ultimately emancipate children from ongoing marginalisation and support them to become active, engaged citizens.

The emotional relations of children's participation rights in diverse social and spatial contexts: Advancing the field

Children's participation rights, enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), have been a popular area of research, policy and practice for decades. Despite a great deal of interest and activity, participation rights have posed a particular challenge to implement. In response, researchers have consistently called for more in-depth and nuanced analyses of the way participatory rights are actually lived and experienced by children and young people, within the complexity of interdependent relationships. However, there has been surprisingly little focus on the emotional relations of children's participation rights. The analytical links between emotions and participation rights are rarely the focus and, where emotions are discussed, they are rarely discussed as a central concern in their own right. This article provides a review of the field and identifies three ways in which making emotions a central concern can help to advance debates on children's participation rights: by helping to unsettle ‘traditional’ constructions of the child-adult binary, by increasing sensitivity to ethical and safeguarding issues, and by making visible and challenging intersectional power relations.

Children’s Participation in Child Welfare Decision Making: Recognising Dichotomies, Conceptualising Critically Informed Solutions.

ABSTRACT This article suggests that there exists a dichotomy within social work related to listening to the voice of the child, contributing to a diminution of social works practical, ethical and legal obligation to enact Article12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The article gives an in-depth exploration of this phenomenon and offers insights as to why this dichotomy exists, arguing that if social work is to realise its obligation to listen to the voice of the child, it must find solutions that accommodate the professions responsibilities to listen to children. One such solution is offered within the paper that may assist social work resolve its problematic relationship with Article 12. An adapted model of Honneth’s recognition theory is offered as a unique theoretical and practical method to help social work accommodate its duty to safeguard children whilst simultaneously listening to their wishes and feelings at individual, State and societal level. The theory can be used to critique current practice, offering social workers a template to build participatory practices, based on the equal recognition of children’s citizenship and agency. Honneth’s theory can be used to evaluate how well new participatory practices satisfy the criteria of love, rights and solidarity. By accepting Honneth’s theory of recognition, social work can begin to make progress addressing the practice dichotomy concerning participation aspiration and reality. The article offers an innovative and unique contribution to the literature on children’s participation by adapting Honneth’s recognition theory and applying it exclusively to the participation rights of children known to social services, offering novel ways social workers can enable this group of children to lay claim to their right to participate.

Exploring the complex emotional relationships that influence children's participation rights in early childhood education settings

Early childhood educators engage in complex and emotional work in their professional role educating and caring for children aged from birth to five years. The aim of this paper is to promote autoethnography as a most suitable method of understanding the role emotions play in the actualisation of young children's participation rights in early childhood education services. The author is a practising educator and draws upon a specific auto-ethnographic account of practice, the story of Sarah, as the focus of this paper to explore the emotional intensity of relationships in early childhood education. Autoethnography is discussed as a method to sit alongside ‘traditional’ ethnographic research to provide a deep understanding of the role of the educator embracing and enacting a rights approach in their work and what influences their decision making. In conclusion the author suggests autoethnography is a useful reflexive tool for educators to consider the role of emotions as a catalyst for change to ensure the actualisation of children's participation rights in daily practice in early childhood education.

Research Trend Analysis on Children's Participation Rights in Early Childhood and in Institution: Focused on Korean Journals

Research Trend Analysis on Children's Participation Rights in Early Childhood and in Institution: Focused on Korean Journals

VATSONGA PEOPLE’S PERCEPTIONS OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

This article is based on the findings of a qualitative study that explored the Vatsonga people’s perceptions of children’s rights to protection. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 community-based participants and 11child protection social workers who were familiar with the Vatsonga people's cultural heritage. Key informant and snowball sampling techniques were employed to select the community-based participants and availability sampling for selecting the social work participants. The study established that the Vatsonga people recognise the provision, protection and participation rights of children. Child participation is perceived as comprised of childhood responsibilities, not the right to be heard perse. The paper argues that some of the purported violations of child rights in Africa emanate from the universal application of a Eurocentric worldview of children’s rights. We conclude that to understand child rights in Africa, African people should be allowed to contribute to the construction of an indigenised and contextualised perspective on child rights.

The recognition of children’s voices in health care and research within Nigerian child protection legislation: A normative analysis

There is a growing body of knowledge about children as moral agents and their capacity and interest to participate in healthcare and research discussions/decisions that affect them. Although this has led to some research and practice improvements that have better-recognized children’s voices, this trend has not been globally embraced, especially within Sub-Saharan Africa. ObjectiveThis study examines and analyzes the rights of children to participate in healthcare and research discussions and decisions within the normative discourse of child protection laws in Nigeria. MethodWe conducted a normative documentary analysis based on five of the principal Nigerian child protection legislative documents enacted from 1999 to 2019. ResultsFindings demonstrated that Nigerian legislation acknowledges the participation rights of children in healthcare and research. However, the normative document also emphasized children’s obligation to the given privileges in the form of respect to parents/guardians, superiors, and elders. ConclusionNorms regulating the rights of children are in existence in Nigeria. Nevertheless, legal guidance to ethical practice in healthcare have been generalized and has not upheld the idea of dignity and liberty of children. We recommend that Nigeria should reconsider the code of ethical practices in the fields of health and research to give children the participatory authority that could provide active involvement and compliance.

The process and meaning of action research on respecting four to five years old children's participation rights

The process and meaning of action research on respecting four to five years old children's participation rights

Manipulation and Domestic Abuse in Contested Contact – Threats to Children's Participation Rights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has catalysed numerous jurisdictions to introduce new legal provisions to support children's participation rights when child contact is contested. Despite this, children's participation is frequently limited in practice, especially in contexts where children are perceived as vulnerable to a parent's manipulation, even if there are allegations of domestic abuse. While “resist and refusal dynamics” have yet to become mainstream terms in Scottish family law, “manipulation” has become a common concern in cases of contested contact. Drawing on a Scottish empirical study on contested child contact in circumstances of domestic abuse, we interrogate the implications that the concept of manipulation has for children's participation rights. The study involved separate in‐depth interviews with 18 children and their 16 mothers. Findings point to concerns about upholding children's participation rights, particularly in cases where children were depicted as “influenced” or “manipulated.” Through our analysis, we disentangle the problems professionals have when concerns about child manipulation and domestic abuse intersect. We argue that, when combined, allegations of manipulation and domestic abuse present a significant and serious risk to children's participation rights. We find the legal construction of the child's views as separate from the parental dispute to have unintended and serious consequences for children's participation rights. We offer ways in which law and practice may evolve to ensure children's participation rights in these contexts are both implemented and upheld.Practitioner's Key Points The combination of allegations of manipulation and domestic abuse present a significant and serious risk to children's participation rights in contested child contact A legal construction of the child's views as separate to the parental dispute to have unintended and serious consequences for children's participation rights Radical reform in family law and practice is necessary to make disputes about child contact centered around the child, rather than on parental responsibilities and rights.

Involving child and youth advisors in academic research about child participation: The Child and Youth Advisory Committees of the International and Canadian Child Rights Partnership

Nearly thirty years ago, the world recognised the participation rights of children with the adoption by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since then childhood researchers in the Global South and Global North have been at the forefront of promoting these rights. The increased involvement of children and youth in research has challenged ‘traditional’ adult research practices in numerous ways. This article explores the role and contributions of Child and Youth Advisory Committees (CYACs) in the research process. It discusses the establishment of CYACs and how they supported the International and Canadian Child Rights Partnership (ICCRP). The ICCRP began as a three-year multi-country research project addressing children’s rights to participation and protection and monitoring this connection internationally within several Global South and North countries: Brazil, Canada, China and South Africa. This article describes the creation and functioning of the ICCRP CYACs and the strengths, challenges, and creative processes in implementation. Findings presented relate to ethics regulation, differing expectations and assumptions about CYAC involvement, and virtual communication. These are discussed with the inclusion of adult researchers’ and the CYAC members’ perspectives. The article shares lessons learned about the role and significance of dialogue to support other child and youth advisory bodies in research at the local and global levels.