To find support for their work with children’s rights, schools around the world have turned to NGOs that offer school programs aiming to strengthen children’s rights at school. Evaluations undertaken of such school programs for children’s rights have shown good effects, for example on school climate, relations, behaviour, and children's influence (Howe & Covell, 2010; Sebba & Robinson, 2010; Halås Torbjörnsen, 2020), but also raised some concerns (Sebba & Robinson, 2010; Mejias & Starkey, 2012; Webb, 2014; Dunhill, 2019). The evidence presented for a correlation between learning about rights and positive effects such as respectful behaviour and increased student influence is, according to Jerome and colleagues (Jerome et al., 2015), rather weak. The authors argue that most studies have focused more on implementation processes than outcomes. They also highlight methodological weaknesses in some studies, in the form of low response rates in survey studies, few interviews in interview studies, mainly drawing on teachers’ views and narratives, or the views of students that were selected by teachers. To shed better light on the impact of school programs for children’s rights, there seems to be a need for further research with a rigorous research design.

Most children’s rights programs offered by NGO’s put children’s right to be involved in processes of deliberation and decision making in school in the center of attention. Students’, teachers’ and policymakers’ perceptions and experiences of children’s influence is also a well-researched topic (Johnson, 2017; Perry-Hazan, 2021). Studies have often reported that children find their opportunities to influence matters that are relevant to them to be very limited (Emerson & Lloyd, 2017; Lake, 2011).

One of the programs available is UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA), which was developed by UNICEF UK. The UK version was brought to Sweden and modified by UNICEF Sweden to suit the Swedish school culture. It was also renamed to Rights-based school. Since the start in 2010 the Swedish version of the program has spread and is now used in about 30 Swedish schools.

No research-based evaluation of Rights-based school has so far been done. Commissioned by UNICEF Sweden, we currently undertake a large-scale evaluation research project, aiming to elucidate if, and in that case how, Rights-based school strengthens schools’ work with children’s rights. In this presentation we report on the first findings, focusing on student influence. One of the main objectives of Rights-based School is to increase students’ influence in school, specified as: “Each student is regularly given opportunities to take part in the development of school and to express her/his meaning and be heard in matters that concern her/hem. Decision makers are given the opportunity to take children’s views into account and to provide feedback on decisions.”

The research questions addressed in our initial analysis are:

(1) How do teachers in Rights-based schools view and describe their work with student influence?  

(2) How do students in Rights-based schools view and experience their influence in school?

(3) Can differences between teachers’ and students’ views be identified?

(4) Can differences between schools that are new to the program, and a school that have worked with the program for a long time be identified?

The initial findings reported on in this paper present an opportunity to reflect on the continuing work and analyses. The main study will when ready not only provide grounds for UNICEF Sweden to revise their Rights-based school program, but will also contribute to the international child rights community with knowledge about how organised rights-based school programs may strengthen children’s rights in educational settings, as well as point out aspects in such programs that need to be reconsidered.

The data for this paper was created in five different schools that use Rights-based school. Four of the schools had just started working with the program, while one school had used it for eight years. This school makes it possible to examine whether long engagement makes a difference. Interviews with teachers and students in years 2, 5 and 8 were conducted during two following years (2021 and 2022). One more set of interviews will be done in 2023. Initial analysis has been carried out of the data from teachers and students in year 5, and it is the result of this analysis that is reported in the current paper. The sample for this analysis is: 2021: 20 teachers, 61 students (28 interviews) 2022: 18 teachers, 67 students (34 interviews) Total: 38 teachers, 128 students (62 interviews) The interviews were semi-structured. Teachers were individually interviewed and the students were mostly interviewed in pairs. Questions were asked to understand how students experience their influence in school and how teachers view student influence. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Qualitative content analysis (Bengtsson, 2016; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) was undertaken to understand meanings of student influence expressed by the interviewees. The analysis was done with the aid of NVivo software. Frequency analysis complemented the content analysis to identify which meanings were most represented in the teachers’ and students’ statements. By conducting a large number of interviews with both teachers and students who has not been selected by principals or teachers, we claim that our research design avoids weaknesses pointed out in previous studies. The large number of interviews provides rigor to the content analysis and comparison of students’ and teachers’ perceptions. The main evaluation study also includes interviews with teachers and students in schools that do not use Rights-based school. The inclusion of these will significantly strengthen the findings of the evaluation study. These interviews have not yet been analysed and are therefore not included in this paper.

In schools that use Rights-based school, various councils (student council, food council, safety council) seem to serve as important arenas for realising students’ right to influence matters that concern them. In the new schools the students also bring up less formal ways to influence their school day and environment. They say that they can just talk to the teachers if there is something they want. They find this mode of influence more efficient than going through the formal processes. This informal influence is not mentioned by any student in the school that has used the program for eight years. Thus, this finding raises questions of whether the program functions limiting to some kinds of student influence, by emphasising influence via formal processes. The teachers almost unanimously express that the content of classroom work is directed by the curriculum, and that students therefore cannot exercise much influence over educational content. However, by involving the students in decisions about how to work teachers have found ways to involve students in classroom decision making. The students do not seem to agree with this picture. In the new schools, influence over working methods is only mentioned in a third of the interviews, and in the established school possibilities to affect working methods is only mentioned in two interviews, the students even accentuating that working methods are planned and decided by the teachers. A striking finding is that students’ perception of what they can influence most in classroom work is the content. When asked about what they believe to be limiting for student influence, the students express very clearly that the main hindrance for student influence in school is dire economic circumstances. Interestingly, when teachers are asked about what they think limits students’ influence, only one teacher mentions economy as a hindering factor.

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