NW 25: Children’s rights in a time of instability and crisis – the role of education

Network
NW 25 Research on Children’s Rights in Education

Title
Children’s rights in a time of instability and crisis – the role of education

Abstract
We live in a time of global instability and multiple crises, such as war, threats to democracy and climate crisis. A rights perspective offers entrance points into this complex current and future landscape of instability and crisis. In this special call we invite presentations that address what role education can and should play for children’s rights in a time of instability and crisis.

The Call
We live in a time of global instability and multiple crises. In the present, war, migration, and the dismantling of democratic systems of governance affect people in many regions. In the future, climate crisis and biodiversity loss will likely increase migration needs and might even threat human existence. Children need to be able to both make sense of today’s crises, and in the near future bring about necessary transformative shifts in human life. And all this must be done in a reality with increased international tension.

A rights perspective offers entrance points into this complex current and future landscape of instability and crisis. In this special call we invite papers that address what role education can and should play for children’s rights in a time of instability and crisis.

Matters that may be examined through empirical research or theoretical reflection include:

• How education is essential for current and future security of children and young people with regard to their well-being, education and rights as human beings.
• How education can support children affected by war or migration by securing their rights or developing their understanding of conflict, migration and climate change as rights issues.
• How education can develop children’s interest in and capacity to take part in joint deliberation and decision making among peers and with adults, and thereby equip them with capacity to resist threats to democracy, peace, and the environment.
• What rights-based knowledge, values and capacities children will need to enable the necessary changes for a future where humans coexist harmoniously with the planet and each other.
• How rights education can give children hope for the future.

For this special call, only paper presentations can be submitted. Submissions that are not selected for presentation in the special call sessions will be transferred to the network’s regular review procedure and if accepted placed in the general program.

Authors who wish to address the topic in another presentation format are welcome to submit to the network’s general program.

Contact Person(s)
Ann Quennerstedt, email: ann.quennerstedt(at)oru.se