Children's Views and Visions of Education Rights From the United States and Canada

• In Event: 29.062 - Implementing Child Participation-Based Research in Four National Contexts

Abstract

Purpose
Despite the fact that the UNCRC gives children the right to have their views given due weight in matters affecting them, children were not engaged to any meaningful extent in the drafting process of the Convention. Researchers in five national contexts undertook research with children to address Michael Freeman’s (2000) query about how different the CRC would look if children’s input had been included. This paper uses a subset of data from the larger study, collected with children ages 8 to 10 in the U.S. and Canada. Working on Article 29 (the aims of education) as an example, the research established that, if children had been involved in drafting the article, there likely would have been significant differences in content, style and interpretation.

Theoretical Framework
Under the UNCRC (1989) children have a right to have a voice in research and evaluation and for these voices to be given due weight. Research has shown that children can tell adults about their experiences and concerns regarding people and environments with whom and with which they directly interact (e.g. Alderson, 2009; Lundy & McEvoy, 2009; MacNaughton, Smith & Davis, 2007; MacNaughton & Smith, 2008; O’Kane, 2000, 2008; Author & Polakow, 2011; Smith & MacNaughton, 2011; Smith, forthcoming; Soto & Author, 2005; Author, Lundy, Author & Author, 2013). There is increased recognition of the value of considering their views.

Methods and Data Sources
This paper draws from data collected in the U.S. and Canada during 3 focus group discussions with primary grades children that included discussion and collaboration on visual representations of education rights and priorities. These contributions were then added and compared to those of children in the other national contexts. There was then a follow up session with the children seeking their responses to these findings.

Results and Scholarly Significance
Overall the children’s expressed views on the aims of education matched well with the UNCRC’s actual content, although they made suggestions for precisions and identified omissions.

Children were supportive of the broad purposes of education, including respect for parents’ culture, and their responses to ‘the purpose of education’ were also supportive of the need to respect children’s own culture and language as well as other languages, particularly that of the country in which they were living. Interestingly, many of the children involved in the study sites were from minoritized groups, making them all the more aware of the importance of safeguarding their right to their own culture.

Children in U.S. were less aware of children’s rights as universal and protected than children of other nations. Children in both nations went beyond current UNCRC language, they mentioned awareness of environmental rights, animal rights, and also focused on bullying, racism, and violence. They also critiqued aspects of formal schooling, including the lack of focus on diversity. This group evolved into a children’s consultative group (Lundy & McEvoy, 2009, 2013). The study points to the need to embed within structures and policies of institutions openness to a more dynamic education that supports alternative worldviews.

Authors

• Sonya Gaches, The University of Arizona

• Haesung Im, Arizona State University - Tempe

• Beth Blue Swadener, Arizona State University

• Natasha Blanchet-Cohen, Concordia University