The argument in this paper is developed in four distinct stages.

In Part 1 an argument for an ecology of rights is rehearsed that initially takes up the argument developed in the paper ‘Performing rights: technologies refiguring childhoods?’ given at last year’s ECER conference (I’Anson and Miller, 2009). Here, the intention was to acknowledge some of the ethical dilemmas and aporias involved in seeking to mobilise rights that, as multiple, made competing demands in practice. (For example, an action that is judged to be in a child’ best interests  may in turn severely curtail a child’s right to self expression.) This argument was developed with particular reference to articles 3 (a child’s best interests), 12 (children’s involvement in matters that concern them), and 13 (respect for a child’s free expression) of the UNCRC.  Having identified some of these performative dilemmas, this paper raises the question: What kinds of questions need to be addressed if the ethical and relational complexity involved in an ecology of rights is to be seriously engaged – and sustained?

In response to this, Part 2 of the paper then considers an instrument that might afford a critical reading of the educational spaces within which children’s rights are performed.  Through asking a series of questions that enquire into how a given space is assembled / performed / resolved, it becomes possible to surface issues of power that impact on its educational framing and the kinds of expression that becomes possible. We argue that only through some such problematization can an ecology of rights emerge.

In Part 3, a case study is described that is drawn from the Moving Image Literacies research project based at Stirling University, where, within a single lesson, a significant shift appears to take place that radically refigures the relational and performative dynamics.  Various ways of describing this change are then considered including Sorensen’s (2007) distinction between representational and performative forms of validity.

The concluding Part 4 analyses this case study in relation to the instrument developed in Part 2, in order to see what insights emerge and whether any effective conclusions might be drawn apropos pedagogy in relation to an ecology of rights.

I’Anson, J. and Miller, K. 2009 ‘Performing rights: technologies refiguring childhoods?’, ECER, University of Vienna. Sorensen, E. 2007 ‘STS goes to School: Spatial imaginaries of technology, knowledge and presence’, Critical Social Studies, 2, pp. 15-27