The use of social media as an educational instrument has thus far been explored primarily in relation to the enhancement of students’ engagement (Osgerby and Rush, 2015). A feature of interest, highlighted specifically in exploring Twitter as a pedagogical tool, is the disposition of the platform in enabling widely different forms of participation (Bista, 2015), creating space for both direct and more subtle engagement. Through the various opportunities for discussion and sharing, participants on Twitter have the possibility to develop a stronger sense of social presence, which contributes to the formation of a renewed sense of belonging, specific to the online community, and which defies the boundaries of the off-line categorisations and separations (ibid, 2015). This very opportunity for unique online social gathering is one of the pillars on which we founded ChildRightsChat. Conceived as digital space for participants to discuss and share matters of relevance to the field of children’s rights, regardless of their offline role and identity, ChildRightsChat aimed at filling a (digital) gap in the growing field of children’s rights.

The Chat intends to create a network of people with a direct interest in children’s lived experiences in bringing together the experiences of different stakeholders to explore the multiplicity, diversity, and tensions across contexts. In doing so, it was expected that the collaborative inquiry community may be able to develop shared understandings of the issues facing children and young people in their own contexts, reflect upon their own and other strategies for overcoming these issues, and develop additional insight or collaborative ideas in relation to new strategies or ways forward in supporting outcomes for children, particularly in education. In doing so, the project enabled the creation of a digital space for learning about children’s lived experiences and different ways that different contexts may impact children’s realities in different ways. Through each of the live chat sessions, child rights situations, experiences, challenges, opportunities and resources were explored.

Although the format of the chat has remained mostly unvaried in this first year of activity, the contribution of special guests sharing their work and responding to questions and reflections has enabled for the chat to gather a multitude of voices, projects and experiences in relation to different subjects informing the wider children’s rights agenda. Additionally, whilst most twitter chats are targeting a specific type of audience, ChildRightsChat’s intention has been to reach out to an as wide as possible range of users. During the first year of the chat, contributors have included lawyers, activists, academics, parents, undergraduate and postgraduate students, educators (at different levels), and few representatives of young people.

In this paper, we theorise on three crucial aspects of the chat, which we have identified as crucial both as a form of reflection and of feedforward. Firstly, we explore whether the chat manages to function as environment enabling communication, reflection and knowledge exchange between unfamiliar and varied participants interested in the field of children’s rights for different reasons and from various backgrounds (Chuang & Chiu, 2018). Our second focus of enquiry reviews the quality and level of balance reached in discussing theory and practice in the chat. This second point echoes previous calls for additional opportunities for theorisation on children’s rights’ matters (Quennerstedt & Quennerstedt, 2014). Lastly, we scrutinise and connect features, modus operandi and topics with levels of participation and engagement, with the aim to identify strategies to enhance this.

Mindful of the challenges of the field to promote the use of theoretical engagement in the analysis of experiences, we have opted for reviewing the achievements of this first year of chat through a solid theoretical framework. Online or digital ethnography is an area gaining increased attention when seeking to understand, research, and explore participant lived experiences. In this project, our position reflects Postill and Pink’s (2012, p. 125) definition of online ethnographic knowledge whereby “it creates deep, contextual and contingent understandings produced through intensive and collaborative sensory, embodied engagements, often involving digital technologies in co-producing knowledge.” We also adopt a rights standpoint that considers and respects the importance of empowering and supporting all humans as rights holders to understand and pursue their rights in and through practice. Given the ethical challenges associated with publicly available and permanently retrievable data from social media postings and technological research, our analysis focuses on moderator observations and reflections on experiences, as well as the tangible data derived from Twitter as an analytic tool. Through adopting a critical realist approach (Alderson, 2013) we consider the chat in relation to different levels of reality; empirical, actual and real (Bashkar, 2017). Introduced to the field of childhood studies by Alderson (2013), critical realism is a paradigm embedded in the 1970s-philosophical current lead by Roy Bashkar. Aiming at overcoming the epistemic fallacy of both positivism and interpretivism, this paradigm proposes the consideration of both physical and experiential realities (Alderson, 2016). In this case, such approach enables for the juxtaposition of raw data tracking engagement (actual) with the behaviours and types of participation exhibited during the chats (empirical). Adopting this unique set of lenses, we aim to uncover the underpinning structures (real) that enable the opportunity for the chat to reach a form of Aristotelian ‘golden middle way’, between representatives of research and practice, between vocal contributors and observers, and lastly between expertise and experience. The analysis developed through the exploration and juxtaposition of the three levels of reality (Bashkar, 2017) function as a helpful reminder of the different elements at play in the digital reality of ChildRightsChat.

The investigation of the empirical and actual (Bashkar, 2017), with a derived exploration of the systems contributing to the real, function in this paper as a starting point to further contextualise and consider our own experiences as co-founders and co-convenors of the chat. We believe that this reflective process (Alderson, 2016) is particularly instrumental in understanding the underlying processes that have unintentionally led us to developing a context where a sort of balance has been reached between theoretical stances and experiential narratives Through this process we explored the mechanisms nourishing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching children’s rights. The analysis raises necessary questions on the variety of disciplinary approaches and canons that may impact education, research, and practice of children’s rights. In addition, the analysis further highlights the importance of advancing an intersectional lens, reflected in ChildRightsChat in the guests and topics covered that seek to foster discussion on topics specifically related to the intersection between children’s rights and different forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, ableism and so on. From these discussions as well as guests’ experiences, the chat as a digital space demonstrates the importance of knowing children’s rights (Article 42º of the Convention on the Rights of the Child) as a mechanism for social justice. Exploring different levels of reality experienced through the ChildRightsChat as a platform for digital rights engagement enables a deeper understanding of the underlying processes contributing to the unintentional balance in connecting regional, local and international contexts with diverse, multidisciplinary audiences. As the chat continues to grow, it remains to be seen as to whether this balance was achieved by chance due to diversity in who happened to engage with different content at different times.

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