Search

Acknowledging children as rights-holders has significant implications for research processes. What is distinctive about a children's rights informed approach to research is a focus not only on safe, inclusive and engaging opportunities for children to express their views but also on deliberate strategies to assist children in the formation of their views. The article reflects on a body of work with children as co-researchers and as participants and demonstrates that building capacity on the substantive research issues enables children to contribute more confidently. It concludes with a conceptualization of this approach integrating relevant international children's rights standards. (Contains 5 figures.)

Research Findings: Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), children have the right to express their views on all matters affecting them and to have those views given due weight. This right applies in the context of research; however, examples of young children being engaged as co-researchers remain rare. Practice or Policy: This article examines the implications of adopting an explicit UNCRC-informed approach to engaging children as co-researchers. It draws on a research project that sought to ascertain young children's views on after-school programs and that involved a university-based research team working along with 2 groups of co-researchers; each composed of 4 children aged 4 to 5. The article discusses the contribution made by children to the development of the research questions and choice of methods and their involvement in the interpretation of the data and dissemination of the findings. It suggests that, although there are limits to what young children can and will want to do in the context of adult-led research studies, an explicit UNCRC-informed approach requires the adoption of supportive strategies that can assist children to engage in a meaningful way, with consequent benefits for the research findings and outputs. (Contains 6 figures.)

This article is based on a pilot study which sought to directly engage pupils in a current government policy initiative using a variety of e-consultation mechanisms and explores how this innovative use of technology could support citizenship education in schools. Drawing on qualitative data collected from interviews with pupils and teachers it argues that significant educational benefits can be derived from pupil participation in e-consultation: development of transferable skills; learning for active citizenship; enhancement of schools' citizenship practices. In particular it contends that these educational benefits were due largely to the robust children's rights framework upon which the mechanisms were based. The article concludes by suggesting that the use of information and communications technology in this study was integral to the realisation of the rights-based approach upon which the e-consultation strategy was modelled. As such the study demonstrates the potential for symbiosis between children's rights, citizenship education and the applied use of educational technology and provides one model for a more inter-disciplinary approach to citizenship education. (Contains 3 figures.)

"Local and global citizenship" will become a statutory component of the Revised Curriculum for Northern Ireland from September 2007. This article uses the development of this new curriculum area as a site to explore three significant stages in the process of transforming policy into practice suggested by the author: policy gestation; policy delivery; and policy approximation. While efforts have been made to ensure that the citizenship curriculum will not repeat the mistakes of previous educational initiatives designed to address the conflict in Northern Ireland and its legacy, an analysis of the citizenship policy within this policy transformation process reveals several flaws which may impede its effective implementation. In particular this article draws attention to certain themes in the rhetoric surrounding citizenship education in Northern Ireland and explores how the "approximation" of these ideas, as the citizenship policy is variously (mis)interpreted by those who mediate it, could potentially destabilize the citizenship project. (Contains 22 notes.)