Children's and Adolescents' Understanding of Rights: Balancing Nurturance and Self-Determination (original) (raw)
Related papers
Studying Children's Perspectives on Self-Determination and Nurturance Rights: Issues and Challenges
Journal of Social Issues, 2008
Over the past three decades there has been a growing interest in children's and adolescents' rights and the tendency to grant young people many of the rights traditionally reserved for adult members of society. Increased awareness of children's rights is clearly reflected in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC; United Nations, 1989), which recognizes children as worthy of citizenship and attempts to increase the commitment of nations worldwide to children's rights. If children's rights are to serve their intended function—to protect children from harm and promote their development and well-being—it is essential to examine how children understand and think about their rights. In this article we review the literature on children's and adults' thinking about children's rights and discuss conceptual and methodological considerations related to this body of research, including the importance of how we conceptualize the construct of children's rights, the types of questions researchers pose about young people's attitudes, knowledge and reasoning regarding children's rights, and the methods used to answer these questions. We address the implications of developmental research on young people's perspectives on children's rights.
Journal of adolescence, 1998
The present study examined the development of knowledge about rights from childhood to adolescence. One hundred and sixty-nine 8-16-year-olds participated in individual semi-structured interviews assessing knowledge and importance of rights both generally and in children's and adolescents' lives. Detailed content analyses indicated that a global stage account may not capture key features of the development of young people's knowledge about rights. Even the oldest adolescents consistently "defined" rights in concrete rather than abstract terms. In contrast, by 10 years of age the majority of subjects were aware of the universal nature of rights. These results suggest that what adolescents and children think about rights appears to be influenced by how they view rights in their own lives. The findings are discussed in terms of developmental theory and in relation to practical implications for children's rights.
The International Journal of Children's Rights, 2010
Th e present study investigated the development of autonomy by interviewing 47 ten-to-sixteen year-old adolescents and their parents from three US Midwestern cities about their perceptions of children's rights. Th e fi ndings showed that on average, parents thought that their children would advocate for more rights than their children actually did. Mothers were more likely than fathers to believe that their child would advocate for self-determination rights. Older adolescents used more diverse reasoning categories than younger adolescents in their decision making. Th ere was no age diff erence in the adolescents' support of nurturance and self-determination rights. Parents were generally given authority over moral consideration, but less over conventional and personal conventions. Th e results are discussed in the context of the development of personal autonomy and relatedness.
Adolescents' and Mothers' Understanding of Children's Rights in the Home
Journal of Research on Adolescence, 2002
Adolescents' and mothers' understanding of children's self-determination and nurturance rights was examined in the context of the home. In individual interviews, 141 sixth, eighth, and tenth graders and their mothers responded to hypothetical vignettes in which a child story character wished to exercise a right that conflicted with parental practices. For each vignette, participants were asked to judge whether the story character should have the right in question and to provide a justification for their decision. Generally, eighth and tenth graders were more likely than their mothers to endorse requests for self-determination and less likely than their mothers to support requests for nurturance. Mothers of tenth graders were more likely to support requests for self-determination and less likely to favor adolescents' request for nurturance in the home than were mothers of sixth and eighth graders. In terms of reasoning, adolescents and mothers were more likely to consider the individuals' rights when discussing self-determination situations, whereas nurturance situations elicited responses pertaining to participants' understanding of familial roles and relationships. Furthermore, mothers' reasoning about childrenÃs rights reflected sensitivity to the developmental level of their children. The findings are discussed in terms of previous research on the development of children's understanding of rights and adolescent autonomy.
Attitudes toward Children's Rights: Nurturance or Self-Determination?
Journal of Social Issues, 1978
This article describes the development of a classification schema consisting of two conceptual orientations toward the rights of children (nurturance and self-determination) which cut across five different content areas. An attitudinal scale based on this schema was administered to 381 individuals representing both sexes and four different groups: high school students, undergraduate education majors, other undergraduates, and adults. High school students held significantly more positive attitudes toward the extension of self-determination rights and significantly less positive attitudes toward the extension of nurturant rights to children than any other group. In addition, differences by sex were obtained toward extending nurturant rights, with females holding significantly more positive attitudes than males. Overall, respondents evidenced more positive attitudes toward the extension of nurturant than of self-determination rights.
Youth & Society, 2014
During adolescence, individuals start to develop a civic identity that contributes toward defining their civic participation later on in adulthood. In developing their civic identity, adolescents start to reason with the topics of rights, duties, and responsibilities. The aim of this study is to analyze how some Italian adolescents (N = 134) conceive the concepts of rights and duties. Moreover, as some scholars-in reference to so-called individualist-focused cultures-assert that people tend to attach priority to their individual rights within an individualistic worldview and deemphasize duties, the aim is also to empirically identify this "individualization of rights." Results show that adolescents who define rights as "are not limited by others" and as disjointed from the notion of duty tend to prioritize their personal rights (vs. other's rights) in two rights dilemmas. This effect is partially mediated by the importance attached to egalitarian values. Article at Alma Mater Studiorum -Università di Bologna on December 12, 2014 yas.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Children's Perspective on the Right of Self-determination
The present study was conducted to determine the thoughts of children, whose lives are governed by decisions taken by adults, on the right to self-determination. The study was conducted as a generic qualitative research, a qualitative research design. The study group included 16 children. The data were collected with semi-structured interviews conducted with children. Before the data collection process, the solo test game was played with children as ice breaker. After the solo test game, the modified version of the Cinderella fairy tale was read by the children and they were asked questions about the fairy tale. The objective of the modified Cinderella tale was to make children imagine a world where the decisions are taken by children. After the fairy tales, the semi-structured interview was conducted. The interviews were conducted upon the approval of the children to record the conversations, and the replies provided by children who did not provide approval for voice recordings were noted by the first author. The findings were analyzed with descriptive analysis. Based on the analysis results, the collected data was grouped in five categories that were organized under two themes. In conclusion, students stated that they were able to decide on daily matters such as selecting clothes, what to eat, however, they were presented with no choices in matters that could affect their lives such as school selection. Children stated that adults do not believe that children can make decisions on issues relevant to children's lives.
College Students' Attitudes Toward Children's Nurturance and Self-Determination Rights1
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2003
Increasing attention is being paid to children's rights issues in policy and law. However, there is little recent research examining adults’ attitudes toward children's rights. This is an important question given that children's rights are unlikely to be fulfilled if they are not supported by the adults involved in their lives. Attitudes toward nurturance and self-determination rights were examined in 461 undergraduate students from the United States and Canada. Students were asked to think of a “target child” (8, 10, 12, 14, or 16 years) when answering the questions. Students strongly endorsed nurturance rights, but were generally unsupportive of children's rights to self-determination. Canadians showed greater support for self-determination than did Americans. In both groups, endorsement increased significantly with the age of the target child. Commenting on factors they considered when responding to the items, participants perceived children's rights as dependent on personal, interpersonal, and societal factors.