Young Children’s Enactments Of Human Rights In Early Childhood Education
Author(s):
Ann Quennerstedt (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2016
Network:
25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

25 SES 01, School Stages and Transitions

Paper Session

Time:
2016-08-23
13:15-14:45
Room:
OB-E0.32
Chair:
John I'Anson

Contribution

In many countries early childhood education has an explicit responsibility to provide an environment in which human value and dignity are respected. Against this background, early childhood education has been studied as an arena for young children’s human rights. This paper explores ways in which human rights become part of and affect young children’s everyday practices in early childhood education and, more particularly, how very young children enact human rights in the preschool setting. The focus is accordingly on the children and their actions. The specific research question is: How do children aged 1-3 enact human rights in the preschool setting? 

Rights research in early childhood education has largely centred on children’s right to participation (eg., Bae 2010, Hudson 2012, Dunphy 2012), and a significant body of knowledge on this theme is available. However, there is a need to widen the lens and to approach early childhood education as a site for children’s rights in new ways. It can further be noted that rights-oriented research on children under the age of three is very limited, and also that few studies have investigated children’s everyday practices and lives from a rights perspective. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge about rights in the lives and experiences of young children.

This research is theoretically informed by a combination of human rights theory and childhood sociology. Human rights thinking has evolved successively over time, expanding both the scope and the subjects of rights (Bobbio 1996). The first rights – civil rights – served to guarantee personal freedom and to recognise the individual as sovereign. Rights to political participation – political rights – came about after the establishment of the initial civil rights, and even later were economic security, social welfare, education and health care declared as socio-economic human rights (UN 1948). However, the emergence and expansion of human rights for children has had another trajectory. In this paper, rights theory provides an approach and a vocabulary that defines rights for children as human rights. 

Childhood sociologists (James, Jenks, and Prout 1998; James and James 2004) highlight how previous views of children tend to objectify the child: the child is understood as an object for natural development (psychological perspective) or socialisation (sociological perspective), thereby directing the interest towards what the child will become. The sociology of childhood rejects such futuristic conceptions of the child and contrasts with the argument that children are active, creative social subjects who are shaped by and shape their circumstances and the surrounding society (James et al. 1998; James and James 2004; Quennerstedt and Quennerstedt 2014). The sociology of childhood theoretically strengthens the claim that children are legitimate holders of human rights in the present.

Method

The study is conducted in a Swedish preschool through observations of the everyday practice of 18 children between the ages of 1-3. In total, 60 hours of observation over three weeks were conducted. A wide variety of common situations were observed: children’s free play indoors and outdoors, teacher-led assemblies or activities indoors and outdoors, excursions outside the preschool area and mealtimes. The researcher alternated between observing passively with no interaction with the children and actively observing with interaction, for example by taking part in a play situation, assisting the children with something or engaging in conversation. The observations focused on situations and interactions where the children’s actions could be reflected against a human right. This research aims to represent children’s perspectives. A substantial body of research has aimed to represent the perspectives of children by ‘listening to children’s voices’. However, the idea of listening to children’s voices has come to be criticised in later years. The critics claim, first, that the idea of ‘voice’ has not been able to move beyond privileging verbal communication (Warming 2011; Raittila 2012), and second, that there is a tendency to romanticise the child’s words by regarding them as innocent and authentic (Eldén 2012; Mazzei & Jackson 2012. These authors also argue that the significance of context, social structures and discourses is ignored in the production of the’ voice’ (Komulainen 2007; Spyrou 2011). The current study seeks to deal with the above critique by employing a methodological approach that centres children’s actions, and that highlights the significance of context. Quennerstedt et al. (2011) argue that meaning emerges in people’s encounters with each other and with the environment, and therefore meaning-making is observable. They further emphasise that meaning-making is always situated in a particular socio-cultural context, which affects the meanings that arise. Context is thus not to be regarded as merely a surrounding environment, but as a participant in the meaning-making process. The paper draws on the methodological approach described above. The three basic starting points in the analysis are: (i) that children’s meaning-making (or voice) is observable in their actions, (ii) that children’s actions provide first-hand information about their experiences in preschool, and (iii) that the preschool context is a co-constructor of the children’s actions.

Expected Outcomes

Three rights areas were identified, within which children frequently deal with human rights in their actions and where they enacted a range of possible rights holder positions. These areas are: 1) Ownership: ownership is an ever-present and complicated rights issue in the preschool context. In their daily interactions, very young children have to deal with the complex norms surrounding ownership as well as the demands of other children and adults in the preschool setting. 2) Influence: Influence, i.e. the political human right to be heard and taken into account, is a rights issue that is common in everyday preschool practice. Most children’s enactment of influence is characterised by resolution – the children take action to make their opinions known and taken into account. Some children’s enactment of influence is however hesitant and insecure. 3) Equal value. The very young children in this preschool meet and have to deal with abstract principles for interaction deriving from ideas about equal value and treatment. In turn-taking situations, the children respond to the equal value norm in different ways and in doing so enact the right to equal value from rights holding positions In the paper, each rights theme is elaborated and contextualised, and the functions of children’s actions in relation to each right are formulated and illustrated by means of observation transcripts and the enacted rights holders clarified. The main findings are highlighted and discussed.

References

Bae, B. 2010. “Realizing children’s right to participation in early childhood settings: some critical issues in a Norwegian context.” Early Years 30 (3), 205-218. Bobbio, N. 1990. The Age of Rights. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press. Dunphy, E. 2012. “Children’s participation rights in early childhood education and care: the case of early literacy learning and pedagogy.” International Journal of Early Years Education 20 (3), 290-299. Eldén, S. 2012. “Inviting the messy: Drawing methods and ‘children’s voices’.” Childhood 20 (1), 66-81. Hudson, K. 2012. “Practitioners’ views on involving young children in decision making: Challenges for the children’s rights agenda.” Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 37 (2), 4-9. James, A., C. Jenks and A. Prout. 1998. Theorizing Childhood. Cambridge: Polity Press. James, A. and A. James. 2004. Constructing Childhood. Theory, Policy and Social Practice. Hampshire/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Komulainen, S. 2007. “The Ambiguity of the Child’s ‘Voice’ in Social Research.” Childhood 14 (1), 11-28. Mazzei, L. and A. Jackson. 2012. “Complicating Voice in a Refusal to ‘Let Participants Speak for Themselves’ ”. Qualitative Inquiry 18 (9), 745-751. , Quennerstedt, A & Quennerstedt, M. 2014. “Researching children’s rights in education: sociology of childhood encountering educational theory.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 35 (1), 115-132. Quennerstedt, M.;Öhman, J. and Öhman, M. 2011. “Investigating learning in physical education – a transactional approach.” Sport, Education and Society 16 (2), 159-177. , Raittila, R. 2012. “With children in their lived place: children’s action as research data.” International Journal of Early Years Education 20 (3), 270-279. Spyrou, S. 2011. “The limits of children’s voices: From authenticity to critical, reflexive representation.” Childhood 18 (2), 151-165. Warming, H. 2011. “Getting under their skins? Accessing young children’s perspectives through ethnographic fieldwork.” Childhood 18 (1), 39-53.

Author Information

Ann Quennerstedt (presenting / submitting)
Örebro University
Department of Education
Örebro

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