This year the CRC is celebrating its 20th birthday. The purpose of the proposed joint symposium between Networks 4 and 25 is to give space for a discussion of issues related to the CRC and education. Of particular interest is the claim to guarantee all children´s equal opportunities to education and all children´s rights in and through education to develop personal talents “..and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential” (CRC, article 29, (a)). The specific theme for the symposium, “Diverse childhoods, diverse rights?” marks an interest to elaborate and bring to the surface on-going research and debates in Europe concerning equal educational opportunities for all children. The four contributions highlight four different questions, each relevant for the search for equality and education apropos children´s rights. They also point at the fact that, in various ways, social and cultural constructions of childhoods carry with them assumptions about children´s value and children´s competence, assumptions which mediate local interpretations of how educational policy and practice should be enacted. In Iceland whilst there is widespread support for children’s rights there is considerably less enthusiasm for inclusive education. Through analysis of available discourse the paper explores possible reasons for these tensions in the context of new calls to think about fundamental democratic values, especially in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis. The paper from Scotland draws upon ongoing research that explores how new information technologies are refiguring childhoods. The focus is upon the new opportunities for young people’s expression that ICT affords, especially through the development of new literacy practices. The paper argues that a new, more complex, ‘rights ecology’ is necessary if these new childhoods are to be acknowledged. The Swedish contribution reports on research into the pedagogical practice and instruction for intellectually disabled children that takes place in separate institutions. Questions are raised as to whose interests are being addressed and whether existing practice serves to underpin the reproduction of social segregation. The Netherlands paper focuses upon how article 3 of the UNCRC informs legal decision making in relation to the best interests of children regarded as vulnerable and having developmental risks. This is explored in relation to psychological and pedagogical literature and the European legal framework and policy on children’s rights. Implications for using a check list in practice are considered together with how this might be applied to children’s educational rights.

A variety of different methodologies are deployed in the four papers including discourse analysis, ethnographic approaches etc.

The four contributions highlight four different questions, each relevant for the search for equality and education apropos children´s rights. They also point at the fact that, in various ways, social and cultural constructions of childhoods carry with them assumptions about children´s value and children´s competence, assumptions which mediate local interpretations of how educational policy and practice should be enacted.