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Child rights research has increased since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989. Reviews of the research has indicated a lack of criticality and a reluctance to interrogate or challenge dominant views. Some scholars argue that this results from under theorisation, whereas other maintain that theorisation is abundant. The paradox suggesting that children's rights research can be both abundant and deficient in theory calls for a thorough discussion about theorisation. This systematic review engages in this debate by exploring what is positioned as "theory" in educational children's rights research, and what function theory has. Analysis determined that alignment with established theoretical approaches is uncommon. Previous research literature is instead often positioned as theory, mostly in combination with policy, law or an established theory. Main functions of theory are to construct the object of study and to provide analysis support. Some uses of theory appear to be more powerful than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, research into children's rights issues in educational contexts has grown significantly. This paper takes stock of the evolution of educational children's rights research, and provides a characterisation of the research field. By means of a systematic analysis of the published scholarship, the main achievements of the research are identified, as well as gaps in knowledge production. Major research foci are highlighted, the theoretical and methodological characteristics of the field are demonstrated, and concerns are identified. Based on the insights gained from analysis of the research field, future prospects are identified and discussed, and some possible routes forward for educational children's rights research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (uncrc) is an international legal text that necessitates multiple translations into national policy contexts if it is to become mobilised within professional practice. The aim of this paper is to foreground this process of translation and to identify some of the limitations inherent within present mobilisations of the UNCRC. On the basis of this diagnosis, we then raise a series of ethical considerations that might inform a more critical and open-ended approach. We characterise current approaches to mobilising the uncrc as an international economy of rights and we represent this diagrammatically. This economy, we contend, involves multiple translations of the UNCRC text into a series of performative demands to which adults become accountable in situations of professional practice with children and young people. We then critically analyse this economy as presently instituted and point to a number of inherent limitations. We argue that a failure to address the issue of translation from legal text to relational practice has led to a technical resolution. The potential challenge of the UNCRC as an authoritative text of critique is further weakened by the promotion of a consensus thinking that privileges agreement over the complexities associated with ethical thinking. In the light of this critique, the paper identifies new lines of questioning to inform debate concerning how a children's rights agenda might be refracted differently in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores 8- and 12-year old children's own views on their rights in school. The aims of the paper are to expand the understanding of what human rights mean to children in the school setting, and to contribute to new ways of thinking about rights for children. Human rights theorising points to the temporary status of what we currently understand as human rights and the various ways in which human rights grow and change. However, children's perspectives have rarely been used to question or develop human rights thinking. Responding to this, the article specifically seeks to represent children's understanding of rights. Based on interviews with 32 children, a number of children's claims for rights at school are identified and elaborated. Most rights the children claim fit into the established human rights framework, and some of the rights the children express go beyond this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of the research into children's rights during the last 20 years has constituted children's rights research as an established and legitimate field of study. The time may now be ripe to reflect on the work undertaken so far and to consider the future of children's rights research. In recent years, self-critical voices have surfaced within the research field, pointing out possible areas of concern. The ambition of this paper is to contribute to such deliberations within children's rights research. In the paper, comments and concerns that have been put forward are brought together and developed further, leading to the suggestion that research into children's rights issues will need to address three major challenges on the way forward: advancing critique, increasing theorisation and contextualising research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a research synthesis that aims to clarify and discuss how children's rights in education are constructed in research. A basic assumption is accordingly that research is an important participant in the process in which principal meanings and essential aspects of children's rights take shape. In the synthesis, 35 research publications, published between 1997-2008, have been selected and analysed. The main findings show that the research interest centres on four main themes: 1) Human rights orientation, 2) Education difficult to change, 3) Children's participation rights, and 4) Children's rights - parents' rights. In research, essential aspects of education are highlighted as matters of children's rights and the research construction give rise to some important insights that call for further research on children's rights in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the widespread use of the "3 p's", provision, protection and participation, to categorise children's rights is critically examined. This conceptualisation is argued to have hampering effects on research in children's rights, in that it frames the research in a problematic way and hinders the possibilities of attaining theoretically driven analyses. In the paper, the emergence and use of the 3 p's is first traced and discussed. Thereafter, an alternative language for constructing and analysing children's rights is proposed, namely the vocabulary used for general human rights: civil, political and social rights. When children's rights are placed within the development of human rights and conceptualised accordingly, a different understanding of the content of children's rights surfaces. The theoretical contextualisation that is then added is suggested as a way of approaching contradictions and conflicts surrounding children's rights issues with more theoretical depth and nuances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]