Children's rights

Working with children to help them to understand their rights, and for practitioners to reflect on their practice to involve children in meaningful decision making, is an area that is being studied more and more by researchers.

There are various theories and pieces of research into rights and participation - these are just a few which may be of interest if you are reflecting on your own practice, evaluating a piece of work you have done in your centre or planning to implement some strategies to promote rights.

Hart’s Ladder of Participation

This ladder is often referred to when planning or evaluating work on implementing children’s right to participate and make meaningful decisions. It separates participation into eight different levels to try to show that some approaches will facilitate deeper and more meaningful participation by children. There are many websites and textbooks which explain this theory. For an overview see the Compasito website, which provides information on human rights education for children, or the Freechild Project website. 

Hart’s ladder of participation is by no means the only way to analyse work on rights and participation. Many researchers have explored this area and have either developed this theme or found new ways of looking at it. One of these researchers, Harry Shier, focuses on five levels and discusses openings, opportunities and obligations for participation to make children’s rights a reality.

The key theme is that developing children’s knowledge, skills and capabilities to become active citizens, to learn about and be able to use their rights and understand their responsibilities is a process which takes time and maturity and must develop at the children’s own pace. The research report 'Building a Culture of Participation' gives a useful and practical overview of different ways of reflecting on participation and rights.