Understanding children's rights Tobin, John
Nordic journal of international law = Acta scandinavica juris gentium,
2015, Letnik:
84, Številka:
2
Journal Article
The aim of this article is to highlight the concept 'quality' with a special focus on preschool teachers' understanding and compare what preschool teachers in Austria, Bulgaria and Sweden regard as ...quality. Although quality is at high degree a subjective concept, some aspects are regarded decisive for good quality. A questionnaire was distributed to 45 preschools. Data have been stored, processed and compiled with the web-based programme 'Netigate'. Totally 117 preschool teachers answered the questionnaire. The results among the three countries have been compiled, processed, ranked and compared and show a glace of different ways to interpret quality, although there are also similarities. Many differences are related to social, cultural and financial issues in the countries per se, but there are also organisational and structural differences. Further comparative research needs to focus on modes to improve the quality in preschool and on increasing children's influence.
Abstract
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.
Il y a moins une crise qu’une érosion de l’autorité éducative. Les deux premières sections de ce texte s’attachent à préciser l’idée d’autorité éducative. Qu’est-ce qui spécifie ce type de relation ? ...Qu’est-ce qui distingue l’autorité de la manipulation, de la contrainte ou d’un simple rapport de domination ? C’est aussi l’occasion de réfuter les thèses critiques, d’inspiration psychologique ou pédagogique, qui entendent purifier l’acte éducatif de toute forme d’autorité. Ces approches, qui assimilent souvent l’autorité à une forme de coercition, minorent l’enjeu anthropologique qui est au cœur du procès éducatif. Si l’autorité est nécessaire c’est tout simplement parce que l’on ne s’autorise jamais seul à être contemporain du monde. Dans la troisième et dernière section, nous présentons trois lectures (sociologique, philosophique et anthropologique) pour comprendre ce phénomène d’érosion.
The importance of the mother tongue, and, more specifically, of mother-tongue education, is recognised globally. Use of the mother tongue is regarded as one of the most effective ways of acting and ...performing cognitively, socially and communally. The aim of this article is to encourage and promote the implementation and realisation of mother-tongue education through certain school/education models in order to achieve equality and liberation and to increase the incidence of high-performance education systems in a multilingual world. A comparative analysis of South Africa and Germany will also be undertaken with regard to language policies and the mother-tongue education situation in these countries' school systems. Several other aspects such as the choice of language as a fundamental right, the importance of international instruments, as well as some lessons to be learnt for both South Africa and Germany in respect of mother-tongue education, will be discussed. It will be concluded that, despite the existence of a multilingual world, the crucial importance of the use of the mother tongue and mother-tongue education should not be underestimated and/or ignored.
School psychology and children’s rights have great potential, well beyond what has been realized, for advancing the best interests of children, their communities, and societies. A child rights ...approach infused into school psychology can significantly contribute to the fulfillment of this potential. To respect and illuminate these factors and possibilities, a brief history of children’s rights is presented, its major components as embodied in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and their relevance for education and the school community are clarified, and the opportunities for school psychology to champion and deeply integrate children’s rights in policy and practice are explored. Employing this base, a proposal is made for a new social contract between school psychology and those it serves which moves beyond reactive problem oriented interventions to give primacy to proactive promotion of the well-being and full holistic development of the child, employing a prospective human development models emphasizing progressive achievement of self-stewardship for all children.
Accessible Summary
Pupils with autism are often physically handled in schools without teachers realising that this can be distressing for them.
Many teachers do not know about the United Nations ...Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Teachers need support with developing their understanding of how pupils experience being handled.
It is important that the rights of disabled pupils are recognised and protected.
Summary
‘Positive handling’ has become a popular intervention within education and other services in England in the management of behaviours that challenge. This paper uses a vignette of an observation of the handling of children with autism as a starting point for consideration of whether this practice can ever really be experienced as positive or whether it is often little more than a mechanism of control that disregards the rights of disabled children and young people. All schools are mandated under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to protect the rights of disabled pupils, but, to date, there has been very little engagement by teachers with this agenda. This paper identifies some of the rights of pupils that are negated through current practice and evaluates what support Prouty's principles of pre‐therapy from the field of counselling might offer teachers with developing a rights based agenda.
As in other Western countries, Australian society has changed considerably over the past 50 years, creating demands for shifts in family-related policies, practices and legislation. The social ...sciences have played an important role in this process by monitoring changes, informing the development of appropriate responses and assessing the effectiveness of such responses. In this article, we briefly explore four key social changes that have had a profound impact on Australian families - women's increasing participation in the workforce; changing perceptions of fatherhood; greater recognition of the existence and destructive consequences of family violence and child abuse; and the increased emphasis on the rights of the child. We suggest that the first two of these changes contributed significantly to the introduction of the Australian Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), and that the other two changes have had a continuing significant influence on legislators' attempts to articulate and implement acceptable decision-making principles with regard to post-separation parenting. Next we consider the most recent major amendments to Australian family law, the 2006 'shared parental responsibility legislation, and its subsequent evaluation by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. We show how this evaluation has provided a basis for examining both the extent to which the policy and practice intentions of these reforms were being achieved, and the extent to which further changes were required. We conclude by noting how the evaluation, along with other research, has contributed to further important changes to family law service provision and further significant legislative amendments.
There is a proliferation of child-care institutions in the recent years. A UN report states that millions of children have grown up in such institutions. The harm that child-care institutions can ...cause to children is well documented, hence the need for regular and meticulous monitoring in order to protect the children. This Article discusses the principles and methodologies for effective monitoring of child-care institutions.
Investing in Young Children Sophie Naudeau, Naoko Kataoka, Alexandria Valerio, Michelle J. Neuman, Leslie Kennedy Elder
2011, 2010, 11-08-2010, 2010-11-08
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
Investing in young children is the responsible thing to do. All children deserve a chance to grow into healthy, educated, and competent people, no matter where and when they were born. While parents ...bear most of the responsibility for raising their children, especially in the early years of life, governments also have an important role during this critical time of human capital accumulation. For example, governments can ensure that all expectant mothers and young children have access to quality health services and nutrition. They can support parents and other caregivers in providing a positive and stimulating environment for children from birth on by promoting parenting information programs, investing in direct services such as home- based visits, funding daycare centers and preschools, or providing financial incentives to access good quality programs for infants and children. This Early Childhood Development (ECD) guide presents lessons and experiences that have been useful in informing the policy debate about ECD interventions and the design of such programs across the world. Whether the user of this guide is at the initial stage of deciding whether to expand an ECD portfolio or already in the program design stage, the content offers a range of evidence- based options to inform policy and investment choices.
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