Session Information
25 SES 07, Children's Perceptions
Paper Session
Contribution
In 2011, the “Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure” received unanimous support within the National Assembly for Wales. The measure sets out procedures for the Welsh Government to ensure the rights of children in Wales are addressed through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The Children’s Right Scheme 2014 add further clarification of the policy, aiming to ensure Ministers have due regard to the UNCRC when exercising their Ministerial functions. The UNCRC details the domains of children’s’ rights as understood by the United Nations. This research is primarily concerned with children’s rights at school, such as Articles 28 (right to education) and 29 (goals of education), as well as articles detailing young peoples’ rights to voice, self-expression, interaction and sense-of-self. Much of the literature regarding the rights of children at school include theoretical treatments of the responsibilities of schools in acknowledging and responding to the rights of children. While these exhortations are important in conceptualising the responsibilities of schools in addressing children’s rights, they often lack empirical evidence illustrating children’s perspectives on how their rights are known, considered and responded to by the school.
In 2013, 849 pupils in secondary schools across Wales completed a survey about their overall school experience. Many of the items in the survey related to the articles of the UNCRC listed above, such as “my views are listened to and taken seriously by school staff.” Overall, pupils’ perceptions of how the school viewed them as individuals with rights to learn, be treated fairly and achieve in school were positive, but less than 40% of the pupils surveyed felt their school listened to their views and took them seriously. The following year, the pupils responded to a new suite of statements regarding the nature of their school. As before, statements such as “School is a place where I am a successful pupil” and “School is a place where I feel like I belong” were related to articles in the UNCRC. As before, the majority of pupils surveyed had positive perceptions of their school in responding to these statements. However, less-positive perceptions emerged when factors of ethnicity and gender were taken into consideration. In 2015, the pupils were surveyed again and they were asked to respond to both suites of statements from 2013 and 2014.
In this third sweep of data collection, many of the responses showed a positive change in pupils’ perceptions of the school in regard to their rights to learn, to be heard and to be understood. Pupils’ perceptions of fairness and belonging increased, as did their feelings of being respected by teachers. However, pupils’ responses did indicate a decrease in their belief that the school staff have high expectations of them and that the staff set goals they could easily achieve. Set within a broad discussion of the rights of children, these findings illustrate interesting differences between gender and ethnicity in regard to the expectations of children's learning outcomes and well-being, as well as the maleable nature of pupils' perceptions of self, their relationships and achievements at school.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Hammarbeg, T. (1997). A school for Children with Rights. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. Retrieved October, 2015 from http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/il2e.pdf United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved October, 2015 from http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/ Publication-pdfs/UNCRC_PRESS200910web.pdf Lundy, L. (2007). 'Voice' Is Not Enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927–942. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30032800 Chevalier, A., Gibbons, S., Thorpe, A. Snell, M., and Hoskins, S. (2007). Student’s Academic Self-Perception. Retrieved October, 2015 from http://ftp.iza.org/dp3031.pdf. Institute for the Study of Labor. Donahue, J. (1994). Student perceptions of their teachers, their school, and themselves as learners (Doctoral Thesis). Retrieved October, 2015 from http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=11693&context=rtd. Iowa State University Digital Repository.
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