Children, Rights, and Involvement in School Textbooks, 1970–2012: A Cross-National Analysis

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 23. Morality, Trust, and Character Education

Abstract

With expanded notions of personhood and citizenship, conceptions of children have dramatically changed over the past century. One of the main outcomes of this is the extension of the international human rights regime to include the unique rights of children. At the same time, by virtue of being young, protections have been put in place to shield children from potential victimization. As young citizens, children are also thought of capable of getting involved in their local and national communities. As children’s status improves around the world, more children are socialized through their participation in formal education, particularly by school textbooks. In this study, we seek to understand the changing global discourse on children’s rights and involvement from 1970-2012. Using over 400 school textbooks from 54 countries, we analyze trends in mentions of children, children’s rights, and children as victims, as well as encouragement for children to get involved and at local and national levels. In addition, we provide explanations for textbook-, country-, and global-level characteristics that explain changes over time. Over this period, drastic improvements have been achieved in the status of children and countries’ levels of economic and political development. We argue that more than these kinds of improvements, it is the expansion of the international human rights regime, particuarly that of international children’s rights, that result in changes in school textbooks. Our findings suggest a modest positive relationship between the status of children within the global human rights movement on children’s rights mentions but none on children’s involvement. Memberships in international non-governmental organizations appears to have a negative relationship with children’s rights mentions but a positive one with children’s involvement. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

Authors

• Christine Min Wotipka, Stanford University

• Lisa Yiu, University of Hong Kong

• Joseph Svec, Iowa State University

• Francisco O. Ramirez, Stanford University