NW 25: Reimagining the Aims of Education Through Children’s Rights: Critical Perspectives for Uncertain Times

Network
NW 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education

Title
Reimagining the Aims of Education Through Children’s Rights: Critical Perspectives for Uncertain Times

Abstract
This special call engages with the importance of education in relation to children’s human rights, beyond just the right to education. The aims of education are outlined in international treaties such as UNCRC, Article 29, which includes the development of children’s personalities, respect for human rights, cultural identity, and the environment. However, the latters remain underexamined in rights scholarship. This call invites researchers to consider whether the aims of education, from rights perspectives, remain relevant, applicable, and useful in uncertain times. It welcomes critical and controversial perspectives, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue to advance educational children’s rights research.

The Call
ECER 2025 aims to map how education, across diverse domains, can contribute to nurturing individuals’ potential and well-being while also being an institution that creates a respectful and democratic community and society. Underpinning the mapping of the aims of education requires consideration of human rights, including human dignity, equality, and fundamental freedoms. The United Nations has set forth the aims of education in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, art. 29, 1) and elaborated in General Comment n°1 (United Nations Committee on Children’s Rights, 2001), according to which education shall be directed to the development of: the child’s personality to their fullest potential (a); respect for human rights (b); respect for one’s cultural identity, language, and values (c); a spirit of understanding, peace, and equality (d); and respect for the natural environment (e). Moreover, scholars have posed a need to educate children and young people as rights holders, emphasising a crucial interrelationship between the knowledge and practice of rights in education and through education (Gillett-Swan & Thelander, 2021; Quennerstedt et al., 2019).

The world is responding to multiple crises, such as national and international conflicts, climate change, migration issues, and mass global health issues alongside a decline in youth mental health, challenges posed by technologies, as well as all other day-to-day breaches of children’s human rights. In such a context, this special call invites researchers to engage with the question of whether the aims of education, as formulated in Article 29 of the UNCRC (1989) and in General Comment n°1 (2001) or more broadly, are still as relevant, applicable and useful today, considering matters such as:

• How might developments in educational children’s rights research afford opportunities and/or challenges to envision what the future of education may be? 
• What specificities, according to different national and/or cultural contexts, are to be acknowledged, inhibiting or advancing progress in the aims of education? 
• What variety of (inter-)disciplinary, methodological, and theoretical perspectives are needed to progress educational children’s rights research? 
• What might a contemporary view of the aims of education from a rights perspective entail? 
• How can research in the fields of children’s rights and education shape future directions in education studies more broadly? 

This special call aims to unravel the ambiguities and complexities of framing the aims of education from a rights perspective and all its variants in other areas of educational theory. It particularly welcomes critical and even controversial perspectives that invite discussion and dialogue across disciplines, intending to advance the field of educational children’s rights research.

Contact Person(s)
Jenna Gillett-Swan & Zoe Moody

References
I’Anson, J. (2020). Article 29 and its Translation into Policy and Practice in Scotland: An Impossible Right to Education? (p. 13-26) Children’s Rights from International Educational Perspectives Wicked Problems for Children’s Education Rights. Springer, EERA Edited Series. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80861-7_15

Lundy, L., & Brown, A. (2020). Revisiting the three Rs in order to realize children’s educational rights: relationships, resources, and redress. In J. Todres & S.M. King (Eds.), TheOxford handbook of children's rights (p. 386-404). Oxford University Press.

Gillett-Swan & N. Thelander (Eds.). (2021). Children’s Rights from International Educational Perspectives Wicked Problems for Children’s Education Rights. Springer, EERA Edited Series. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80861-7_15

Strommen Lile, H. (2020). International Law on the Aims of Education: The Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Legal Framework for School Curriculums. Routledge.

Quennerstedt, A., Tellgren, B., Brantefors, L., & Thelander, N. (2019). Teaching children’s human rights in early childhood education and school: Educational aims, content and processes. In Reports in education 21. Örebro University.

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (2001). General Comment No. 1: Article 29(1) The aims of education. UN Doc. CRC/GC/2001/1.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). UN Doc. A/RES/44/25.