Conference Agenda

This paper examines the political economy of education choice discourses and seeks to theorize the roots of claims to parental rights in countries generally associated with the Anglosphere and with similar political, legal, and philosophical traditions: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Across these countries, similar discourses of parental rights are grounded in three forces shaping education politics: a strong orientation towards property rights, a socially conservative understanding of the role of the family, and neoliberalism and the privatization of publicly funded systems. Education reform is globalized and entrenched in a network of international organizations such as UNESCO and the OEDC among others (Sahlberg, 2016). As such, trends in education policy discourses move across jurisdictions, particularly those with similar models of education and shared legal, political, and cultural roots. Tracing the roots of these shared discourses represents an opportunity to interrogate the theoretical underpinnings of parental rights claims that supersede the rights of the child.

Parental duty of care for the child in the British common law tradition has roots dating back to the Roman empire’s legal restrictions on the powers of patria potestas (the legal rights of the father as pater familias). This duty of care was grounded in ideas of the child as chattel of the household (McGillivray, 2011), with duties towards children and restrictions on abuse similar to those regarding other living possessions under a heteropatriarchal understanding of the family. This principle enters into British common law tradition via canon law.

In his Two Treatises on Government, seventeenth-century British philosopher John Locke framed the idea of “natural rights.” However, he believed social rights did not exist within persons whose reason was not developed enough to pursue the self-preservation of those rights (Wall, 2008). Parents became the fiduciaries of the rights of the future person, responsible for the care of the child until they could assert their rights as adult rational actors.

This model informed legal decisions regarding children’s capacity for self-determination and the rights of parents through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with recognition of the rights of children coming largely in the area of protection rights, viewing children generally as human rights objects rather than as human rights subjects (Wall, 2008; McGillivray, 2011). As the role of the state grew, protection for children’s wellbeing shifted from patria potestas ­to parens patriae – the fiduciary power of the state over those needing protection (McGillivray, 2011). This shift underpinned changes in custody, child welfare, and other state interventions in the life of the family and brought the child into the public sphere as a semi-citizen afforded the protection of the state but not the liberties of an adult person.

A further shift can be traced in the evolution of international conventions. The 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child set out a series of duties that humanity owed to children. Under the 1959 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, protections expanded and included the principle that decisions regarding children should represent the best interests of the child.

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child shifted substantially and added participatory rights such as freedom of thought, expression, conscience, and religion distinct from those of their parents. However, the boundaries of parental rights and children’s rights continued to be contested within and beyond the UNCRC. In the neoliberal era in which education is increasingly privatized, the prioritization of property rights merges with continuing beliefs in children as the property of parents, shaping education reform discourses in which parental rights override children’s rights as the primary rights in education.

This paper considers that education is for the ‘common good’ and explores the ways in which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be both a motivator and guide as to how this might be achieved. In particular three SDGs relating to human rights, education and the environment will be explored and developed to illustrate how they might form the basis for developing an education environment in which the ‘common good’ is paramount rather than the need for school league tables and standardised testing of students. The premise that schooling is about preparing our children and young people to take their place as responsible adults in the wider world is the underpinning paradigm for this paper.

The concept of the ‘common good’ is explored to reveal that while the term may be considered as an ideal to attain, it can also be used to allow for persecution and division in an autocratic and inward looking society. It raises the need for a global understanding of the term if the educational ideal is to be achieved.

The UNESCO publication (2015) asserts that there is a need to consider the guiding principles of education “as a human right and as a public good” (p. 11). Hollenbach (2002) considered the common good as being “the good realised in the mutual relationships in and through which human beings achieve their well-being” (p. 81). The perception of the ‘common good’ in today’s world would appear to be directed by governments who formulate policies and give directives to state agencies to direct how they work within society to both overtly and covertly meet the underlying principles of the political party in power.

Governments taking such power to themselves may argue that this is the only way to protect its citizens, but it has the potential to open the door to misuse of such power under the guise of being for the ‘common good’. The neo-liberal zeitgeist of standardisation would dictate that schools are about attainment targets for students, leading to school curricula and teaching strategies being about making sure that students can pass tests rather than learning for life. In this model, there is no place for the development of critical thinking skills, nor of deep inquiry strategies. In contrast, Rennie, Venville and Wallace (2012) regard schools as having the “social role of preparing our youth to be responsible adults and sensible citizens” (p.viii). The authors see the starting point of this approach as the “proposition that we live in a global community” (p.viii). Alderson (2016), in discussing citizenship education and its possible dilemmas, asserts that knowledge about rights should be a crucial inclusion in school curricula. She comments that “…rights serve as powerful structures that can help to prevent and remedy wrongs, and they work as enduring high standards and aspirations” (p.1).

The three SDGs under consideration link to the world in which we live and the ways in which they can influence our concept of what might make the basis for schooling that values the ‘common good’. The concept underlying this thinking is that we have a common dwelling place on a planet revolving in orbit around our sun. As such, each of us has a responsibility to care for our dwelling and look out for the interest of others. Each abuse of this world has an effect on all of us. The author contends that by diversifying the concept of schooling and the nature of school curricula to emphasise these three goals then we have the opportunity to have education systems that have the overarching aim of being for the ‘common good’ of society.

Schools comprise a critical arena in which liberal states and ultra-religious communities compete over normative superiority. A prominent manifestation of this contest is the repeating conflicts over the scope of secular education (SE) in Haredi (Jewish ultra-Orthodox) boys schools, which sanctify religious studies and prepare students to become religious scholars, outsiders to the workforce (Author 1, 2015). Recent events put conflicts over Haredi education at the forefront of public and legal discourse. A New York Times investigation revealed serious concerns regarding the quality of SE in New York Haredi schools (Shapiro & Rosenthal, 2022). In the UK, a new Schools Bill seeking to revoke the exemptions accorded to unregistered Haredi schools (Rocker, 2022) met with mass Haredi protests (Bloch, 2022). In Israel, a fierce struggle over a new policy that incentivizes Haredi schools to teach SE nearly dismantled a Haredi political party and could impact the outcome of the national elections (Rabinowitz, 2022).

Despite the enduring conflict over the regulation of ultra-religious education, we have scant empirical knowledge on the role of such regulations in ultra-religious schools’ decision-making processes. We study this question in the context of Haredi elementary schools for boys that are obliged to implement Israel’s core-curriculum regulations.

Theoretical Framework

The conflict over the regulation of ultra-religious education manifests a tension between the acceptability and adaptability features of the right to education (UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1999). The right to acceptable education emphasizes the development of the children’s personality, talents, and mental and physical abilities (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, Article 29(1)(a)). The right to adaptable education entails the adaptability of education to children’s cultural affiliations (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, Article 29(1)(c)), and the protection of minority children’s cultural rights (Article 30). The conflict over the regulation of ultra-religious education also pertains to parental rights (Lundy, 2005) and state interests in a strong democracy (Guttmann, 1999) and optimal workforce participation (Robeyns, 2006).

Balancing the competing rights and interests is a complex task that concerns policymakers worldwide (e.g., Author, 1, 2014, 2015; Lichtenstein, 2022; Rocker, 2022). A common form of balancing is a universal “core” curriculum that reflects basic educational standards (Beane, 2016). Studies exploring Haredi schools in different countries (Author 1, 2015) and Islamic schools in Singapore (Tan, 2010) concluded that mandatory core curriculum policies are ineffective due to communal resistance and the state’s reluctance to use drastic measures such as school closing. These studies were mainly based on documents. Two small-scale studies addressing conditional funding curricular policies provided data regarding the implementation of such policies (Author 1, 2014, 2019). Another study suggested that ultra-religious communities may be open to implementing core curricula if these programs communicate respect for their identity (Author 2, 2021). These studies laid the foundations for the present study. To date, however, no studies have systematically explored the reality of (non)compliance with the core curriculum in Haredi schools and empirically mapped the factors shaping schools’ decisions regarding SE.

To explore how Haredi schools respond to the core-curriculum regulations, we draw on institutional theory, which offers a framework for analyzing the competing sources that influence organizational decision-making processes. A significant thread in institutional theory has focused on the external sources that influence separate organizations within a field to act in similar ways, a phenomenon termed isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Another thread is institutional work, which highlights the role of agency within institutional theory and explores the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence et al., 2011).

Both Childhood Studies and the New Sociology of Childhood revised the idea of children as passive and dependent individuals and understand them as social actors and active co-constructors of their environment (Honig, 2009) which induced an increasing consideration of children’s agency as “the will and capacity to act and to influence others or the environment” (Deakin Crick et al., 2015). This understanding relates to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, UN 1989) which recognises children’s participatory rights as well as their right to a voice which is heard, given a space to be expressed, listened to and acted upon (Article 12; Lundy, 2007). Despite the increasing attention for children’s voice and agency, a need for clarification in the theoretical conceptualisation of children’s agency has been identified (Priestley, 2020).

Childhood and adolescence are concepts that are constructed and shaped by normalising practices, discourses and structures. Thus, children and adolescents are constantly confronted with the demands of a complex social reality as well as societal norms (Corsaro, 2005). Educational institutions have the function to foster young people’s development into agentic, critically thinking and creative citizens for a democratic society and to empower them to develop their capacities as it is emphasised in article 29 of the UNCRC. They are, however, also places of reproducing social inequality (Ballantine & Stuber 2017).

Thus, this symposium focusses on the questions “How do children and young people who are labelled as not fulfilling societal norms or being in socially disadvantaged positions experience agency? How are they supported or restricted in achieving agency by educational institutions?”. The symposium aims to discuss children’s and young people’s agency in relation to different dimensions of diversity and social inequality from an international perspective, involving perspectives from Scotland, Estonia and Germany. The focus of the papers lies on the following questions:

• How do children and young people experience agency within educational institutions?
• How is children’s and young people’s agency related to different dimensions of diversity/social inequality as well as the ecological conditions of the different countries?
• How do educational institutions and practices support or restrict agency?

The twofold comparative perspective on children’s and young people’s agency does not only involve different national perspectives but as well different dimensions of diversity. Representing an intersectional approach, the three papers address different dimensions of diversity which do not only relate to categories that are currently associated with diversity such as gender, ethnicity or dis/ability, but also focus on the diversity of children’s experiences (e.g. care experiences or experiences with individual assistance at school). Moreover, different age groups are represented which is why both the terms “children” and “young people” are used. All papers represent a methodical approach (qualitative or quantitative) which emphasises the experiences and voices of children and young people recognising them as experts of their own living realities.

Furthermore, the symposium intends to contribute to a discourse of a theoretical conceptualisation of children’s agency by discussing the theoretical implications of the different research perspectives and using a temporal-relational ecological approach as a theoretical framework to analyse and understand agency (Emirbayer & Mische 1998; Priestley et al. 2015). From this perspective, agency is conceptualised as “a temporal and relational phenomenon” and “an emergent phenomenon of the ecological conditions through which it is enacted” (Biesta et al. 2017, 40). The focus lies on how actors achieve, produce and enact agency within specific environments and under certain ecological conditions. This understanding emphasises agency being a social construct rather than being an individual capacity. Agency is therefore shaped by possibilities and restrictions of the physical and social environment (Priestley, 2020).

This paper explores the concept of young people’s agency, addressing the question: How can we better understand young people’s achievement of agency? Drawing on two studies (see below), I argue that educational and broader contexts have roles to play in shaping the agency that young people can achieve. An analysis using a temporal-relational ecological understanding of agency (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998), makes visible some of the enablers and constraints that young people can face in particular educational contexts. Empowerment discourses, fashionable in current policy and practice, are reflected in Scottish legislation for children and young people and evidenced by duties on public bodies to consult children and young people in policy making (see for example; Scottish Executive, 1995, 2000, 2004). The Scottish Government’s (2007) recognition of a strong association between under-achievement and unemployment is evident in increased flexibility in the senior phase of secondary education, to allow students more choice (ibid., 2010), and in the trend to encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning, something that Davies (2006) terms ‘responsibilisation’ (Davies, 2006). This policy turn suggests that the agency young people achieve is important and that education has a key role to play in fostering it. However, ecological perspectives on agency (Biesta & Tedder, 2006) would suggest that this is problematic. Whilst education can develop individual capacity, this is not the same as agency, which is also shaped by the conditions of educational and wider contexts. This paper discusses two cases, using this ecological framing of agency. The first case studies secondary school students, labelled as non-attenders, and their opportunities in the post-compulsory phase of schooling. The second explores an empowerment group for care-experienced young adults (18-21) and their experience of schooling and post compulsory education. In both cases, educational trajectories were tailored to suit performative agendas of schools, rather than educational needs; but in the second case the existence of developed social networks helped these students achieve agency despite this. The data were generated through recorded interviews. Initially simple coding or ‘descriptive’ coding was applied to the data (Miles & Huberman, 1994), and then thematic coding. The cross-case analysis of the interviews included an iterative process of engagement with the research literature, including the application of Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) agency framing. This research followed the principles of the British Educational Research Association Ethical Guidelines (BERA, 2018).

Biesta, G. J. J., & Tedder, M. (2006). How Is Agency Possible? Towards an Ecological Understanding of Agency-as-Achievement. Learning Lives: Learning, Identity, and Agency in the Life Course. Working Paper Five, Exeter: Teaching and Learning Research Programme. British Educational Research Association (BERA) (2018). Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. Fourth Edition. Davies, B. (2006) Subjectification: the relevance of Butler’s analysis for education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27 (4), pp. 425-438. Emirbayer, M. & Mische, A. (1998) What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962-1023. Miles, M., & Huberman, A. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. London, UK: Sage. Scottish Executive. (1995). Children (Scotland) Act. Edinburgh, UK: HMSO. Scottish Executive (2000) Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act. Edinburgh, UK: HMSO. Scottish Executive. (2004). The local government in Scotland Act 2003. Community planning: Statutory guidance. Edinburgh, UK: Crown Copyright.

Estonia is an interesting case for studying student agency due to its ethnically segregated school system. Since the Soviet occupation in 1940 the Estonian education system was segregated into Estonian and Russian language schools to accommodate an increasing number of Russian speaking immigrants. After Estonia regained its independence in 1991 the only official language became Estonian but 25% of the population speaks Russian. The segregation has created many problems: Russian schools lag behind in state exam and PISA test results (on average by 40 points). Further, the Estonian language skills of many Russophone students are not sufficient to continue their education in high school or higher education where the instructional language is predominantly Estonian. There is some evidence that teachers in Russian schools have not adopted the same student-centred educational philosophy as in Estonian schools (Carnoy, Khavenson & Ivanova 2015) and prefer using the Soviet pedagogy. As a consequence, Russian students face problems with social mobility (Kunitsõn & Kalev 2021). This study had two aims: to develop an instrument to measure student's agency for Estonian and Russian schools and to compare the agency scores of students in order to ascertain to what extent do Estonian and Russian language schools currently support the development of students into agentic, critically thinking and creative individuals and citizens for a democratic society. The student agency scale includes concepts such as: agentic engagement (Reeve & Shin, 2020), resistance to perceived injustice (Mameli, Grazia & Molinari, 2021), perceived agency support (Reeve & Shin, 2020), persistence in pursuits (Vaughn, 2021; Dweck, 2006). According to a confirmatory factor analysis they loaded in three factors. 9309 students in grades 6-12 from 55 Estonian and 4 Russian schools participated in the main study in February 2022. Four hypotheses were set: 1) Students in Estonian gymnasia report higher levels of agency than students in Russian schools; 2 there are differences in perceived agency support in Russian and Estonian language schools; 3) there are gender differences in the agency scores between boys and girls both in Estonian and Russian schools; 4) students in higher school stages report higher levels of agency both in Estonian and Russian schools. The indpendent T-tests and Anova tests proved all four hypotheses. Student's agency scores were higher in Estonian schools and boys estimated their capacity for agentic behaviour and teachers’ support for their agency higher than girls. This confirms that agency is a cultural and gender phenomenon.

Carnoy, M., T. Khavenson, and A. Ivanova. 2015. ‘Using TIMSS and PISA results to inform educational policy: a study of Russia and its neighbours.’ Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 45(2): 248-271. Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House Publishing Group. Kunitsõn, N., & L. Kalev. 2021. ‘Citizenship education policy: a case of Russophone minority in Estonia.’ Social Sciences 10 (4), 131. Mameli, C., Grazia, V. and Molinari, L. (2021). The emotional faces of student agency. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 77. Reeve, J. & Shin, S. H. (2020) How teachers can support students’ agentic engagement, Theory into Practice, 59:2, 150-161. Vaughn, M. (2021) Student agency in the classroom: honoring student voice in the curriculum. New York: Teachers College Press.

This paper engages with children’s agency in German primary school classrooms with paraprofessional assistance. With signing the UN-convention of the rights of persons with disabilities (UN 2006), Germany committed to create an inclusive educational system recognising the right to education for all pupils. In order to ensure the participation of pupils with special educational needs, paraprofessional assistance has been established as a resource of individual support. The structural conditions are complex, since paraprofessional assistance is a resource of social care and not of the educational system (Fritzsche & Köpfer 2021). Research indicates that the individual child-centred support and the close relationship between pupils and paraprofessionals can impact the pupils’ participation in the classroom as well as the social interaction with peers and that it can be a practice of labelling the pupils as ‘special’ (Ehrenberg & Lindmeier 2020). This raises the question of how the individual support practices affect, support or restrict the pupils’ agency. The paper discusses the findings from the PhD-project “Reconstructions of subjectivity, power and agency in the context of paraprofessional assistance in inclusive school environments”. The project uses an ethnographic design in order to reconstruct practices of subjectivation linked to ascribing or denying agency to the pupils using a theoretical perspective which links the ecological approach to agency (Biesta et al. 2017) to post-structural theory. Following the understanding of Butler (1997a, 1997b), we understand agency as the power to act emerging from processes of subjectivation and being related to subject positions in which individuals are addressed. In this understanding, agency is a performative concept in which social norms and structures are reproduced, potentially enabling individuals to resist and destabilise the social order (Butler 1993; McNay 1999). In linking the post-structural and ecological understanding of agency, we focus on how processes of ascribing or denying agency are framed by social norms, the ecological and temporal conditions and power relations from which they emerge. Within this theoretical framework, we present data from both participant observation in class-rooms environments and focus group interviews with primary school pupils that are analysed using a method which combines interaction-analytical and discourse-analytical elements. The focus lies on the following questions: • How do pupils in inclusive classrooms with paraprofessional assistance experience, achieve and negotiate agency? • How is their agency shaped by practices of individual support? Which spaces of acting are opened up to the pupils and how do they use them?

Biesta, G.; Priestley, M. & Robinson, S. (2017). Talking about education: exploring the significance of teachers’ talk for teacher agency, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49:1, 38-54. Biesta, G. J. J., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an eco-logical perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39, 132–149. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997a). The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Butler, J. (1997b). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. London: Routledge. Fritzsche, B. & Köpfer, A. (2021). (Para-)professionalism in dealing with structures of uncer-tainty – a cultural comparative study of teaching assistants in inclusion-oriented classrooms. Disability and Society, 37 (6), 972-992. Ehrenberg, K. & Lindmeier, B. (2020). Differenzpraktiken und Otheringprozesse in inklusiven Unterrichtssettings mit Schulassistenz. In: Leontiy, H. & Schulz, M. (Eds.): Ethnographie und Diversität. Wissensproduktion an den Grenzen und die Grenzen der Wissensproduktion. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 139-158. Mc Nay, L. (1999). Subject, Psyche and Agency. The Work of Judith Butler. Theory Culture & Society, 16 (2), 175-193. United Nations (2006): Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html .

Since 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes children as subjects of rights. They have also undertaken to make the best interests of the child a priority consideration in all sectors of society, notably in education. Children’s rights education can be relatively explicit, by teaching about children’s rights, or more implicit, with education taking place through the process of experiencing children’s rights respecting environments. This interaction between rights-focused content and rights-respecting learning processes supports the emancipation of children, who are thus able to defend the respect of their own rights as well as those of others (Moody, 2019). This contribution will specifically focus on implicit rights education with specific attention placed on rights-respecting environments from the viewpoint of actors. Based on empirical findings from two previous studies (Louviot, 2019; Zerika, Darbellay & Moody, 2022), it aims to develop a model to describe and understand the links between children’s rights education and the concept of school climate. The dimensions of participation of children in school and of more or less autonomous learning will be more specifically explored.

School climate is a multidimensional concept that takes into consideration various domains of school life and organization. Most studies include dimensions related to relationships, security, teaching and learning, as well as the institutional environment (Cohen et al., 2009; Janosz et al., 1998; Lewno-Dumdie et al., 2020). The concept is usually constructed as the articulation of the affective and cognitive perceptions of all members of a school community: educational staff, students, and parents (Rudasill et al., 2018). Research has highlighted that students’ learning and well-being are fostered within a positive school climate that develops social, emotional, and democratic education (Thapa et al., 2013).

This contribution aims to develop the theoretical links between rights-respecting environments and a positive school climate and confront them with empirical data. Covell and Howe (1999, p. 182) suggest that “including children’s rights education in school curricula is likely to improve children’s psychological well-being, teacher and peer relationships, and to promote more positive attitudes toward ethnic minority children”. Research on children’s rights through education suggests that rights-respecting learning environments with attention to pedagogical practices have an impact on children’s attitudes and engagement as well as on the welfare and protection of children (Quennerstedt & Moody, 2020). Similarly, Quennerstedt (2022) shows that education through right can be conceptualized as a positive school experience in relation to being safe, expressing opinions, being heard, and being equally treated. Research suggests that links between rights-respecting teaching and learning environments and dimensions that are constitutive of a positive school climate exist.

What are the specificities of rights-respecting teaching and learning environments which can support a positive school climate? Conversely, what dimensions of the school climate are more directly in relation to rights-respecting teaching and learning environments? Theoretical and empirical answers will be provided in this presentation.

Children represent a large, unique, and underappreciated user group of digital technologies (Gillett Swan & Sargeant, 2018). For this reason, the protection of children and their rights is among the issues of increasing importance in the digital age. It means that children are in a particular situation that requires a unique interpretation of human rights regarding social conditions and universal status in a digitized world (Öhman & Quennerstedt, 2017). This paradoxical situation points to an issue that needs to be emphasized when considering the best interests and well-being of children who are digital users. It also leads child rights experts to ask: "On what principles and with what qualities of environments and content should access to and participation in digital media as a right be based in a way that includes children's best interests? However, it is not easy to answer this question because even child rights experts and sector representatives are still unable to establish cooperation and understanding on promoting and respecting children's rights in digital environments and overlook the nature of the problems in this regard (Livingstone, 2021). Fortunately, "General Comment No. 25 on the Rights of the Child in Relation to the Digital Environment" published by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2021 emerges as a guide for us. This Declaration which includes issues related to the protection of children's rights in digital environments, draws attention to the need to improve the digital literacy levels of children, parents, childcare providers and educators. At this point, it is foreseen that the user profiles of children in digital environments can guide us in terms of the steps to be taken to protect both themselves and their rights. These profile findings can also guide us about digital literacy areas that should be included in children's rights education processes. In the scope of this research, it is aimed to extract the digital user profiles of children and to discuss the findings in terms of children’s rights awareness. With this overarching aim, the research aims to find answers to the following sub-questions:

a) What are the most used digital platforms by children and their intended use?

b) What are the children's perceptions of the emotional effects of digital tools/platforms on them?

c) In what way do children's daily use of digital tools and spatial usage preferences intensify?

d) What are the topics that are described as disturbing content by children on digital platforms?

e) What are the aspects of digital tools/media that are considered beneficial and harmful by children?

f) What are the tendencies of children to share their personal information on digital platforms?

g) What are the tendencies of children to use chat applications, and what are their purposes for use?

h) What are the issues considered by children as the risks of digital environments?

i) What are the types of content needed/expected by children in digital environments?

j) What is the self-evaluation of children regarding their rights awareness as digital users?

k) What are the children's rights that are actively used by children in digital environments and that are frequently violated on the other hand?

Children are not typically considered as being ‘political’, but they have the right to freedom of peaceful assembly under international human rights instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Nonetheless, a lack of commentary and jurisprudence on this right of children and young people has left the right largely unexplored. Similarly, the aims of education set out in Article 29 CRC are almost identical to the education rights enshrined in Article 13(1) ICESCR, but Article 29 seems to be taken for granted (Gillett-Swan, Thelander and Hanna, 2021). Both CRC and ICESCR explicitly acknowledge the role of education in wider society and democracy, and jurisprudence on Article 29 CRC highlights that education is not only a right in itself, but an essential medium for the realisation of other rights (Lundy et al, 2016; Tomasevski, 2001; see also Gillett-Swan and Thelander, 2021). Article 29 largely mirrors the ICESCR and its reference to education as development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, but it also features additional references to respect for cultural identity, language and values, and the natural environment.

Article 29 CRC sets out the purpose and value of education in a presentation that has been criticised for being idealistic (Lundy and Martinez-Sainz, 2018), and that has led to emergent tensions between the disciplines of human rights law, and the education to which it pertains (Gillett-Swan and Thelander, 2021). Indeed, it is its position as a right that enables all other rights (Lundy et al, 2016; UN, 2001: para. 6) that may explain the lack of substantive focus in the literature (Gillett-Swan, Thelander and Hanna, 2021). There are a number of typologies that represent education rights such as Tomasevski’s (2001) ‘4-A’ typology, and Verhellen’s (1993) typology of rights to, in, and through education. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, however, emphasises that education is not merely formal schooling, but the experiences that connect young people’s lives with the purpose of education (UN, 2001: para. 2). Crucially, this purpose includes ‘efforts that promote the enjoyment of other rights’ in all environments, whether ‘home, school or elsewhere’ (UN, 2001: para. 8). Despite this emphasis on the purposes of education as being the lynchpin of children’s rights more broadly, there is still little empirical research that illuminates the aims of education as a right in and of itself, and little attention to how exercising civic rights such as the right to freedom of assembly (Article 15) can realise children’s education rights under Article 29.

Whilst the findings from an empirical study have been presented elsewhere (Martinez Sainz & Hanna, forthcoming; Hanna & Martinez Sainz, under review), this paper seeks to address the scarcity of jurisprudence and commentary by presenting a conceptual framework that links article 29 aims of education and article 15 right to freedom of assembly through the lens of social epistemology. This paper employs empirical data gathered in an examination of how young people exercised their right to freedom of peaceful assembly during the pandemic, using the social epistemology of groups (Bird, 2021; Tollefsen, 2021) and of human rights (Buchanan, 2021) to conceptualise how young people learn through protest in realisation of the aims of education under Article 29.

This study explored the association between the development of fundamental movement skills (FMS) and mathematics achievement, and whether the understanding of specific spatial concepts mediated these relationships.

FMS are basic locomotor, object manipulation, and stability patterns that lead to complex specialised skills and later physical activity (Gallahue & Ozmun, 2006). It has been well established that FMS have beneficial effects on children’s holistic development (Brown & Cairney, 2020), but research examining other benefits, such as academic achievement, are less established. This is an important avenue to examine as achievement in mathematics has been declining internationally (Wijsman et al., 2016). Within the UK, the Department for Education (2015) reported that many primary school children do not meet the required levels of mathematics needed to be ready for secondary school. Therefore, if factors that may positively affect mathematics performance in young children are identified, then more benefits could occur later in life.

Research has found that overall FMS scores are positively associated with mathematics scores in children (de Bruijn et al., 2019). Spatial ability may be an explanatory factor to explain this association. Spatial ability, as described by Uttal et al. (2013), distinguishes spatial abilities between intrinsic and extrinsic, and static and dynamic skills, resulting in a 2x2 classification of spatial ability. Intrinsic-static spatial ability involves distinguishing the characteristics of a stationary object without the need for mental transformation. The ability to distinguish the characteristics of an object whilst moving it or changing its location, orientation, or dimensions either physically or mentally is defined as intrinsic-dynamic spatial ability. Extrinsic-static spatial ability involves determining the relations among objects in a group relative to one another without mental transformation, whereas extrinsic-dynamic spatial ability involves determining group relations relative to one another whilst objects are moving and require changes in orientation, location, and dimension either physically or mentally. Based on this classification, research has found that FMS are positively associated with spatial ability. For example, children who ran faster scored higher in a test of intrinsic-static spatial ability and children who threw a ball further performed better on a test of extrinsic-static spatial ability (Jansen & Pietsch, 2022). Furthermore, research has found that all four spatial abilities are positively associated with mathematics achievement (Gilligan et al., 2019; Xie et al., 2020). However, there is little research that incorporates all three constructs in one study, with only a few FMS being assessed, extrinsic-dynamic spatial ability not being assessed, or general relationships not being examined.

Therefore, the current study incorporates all three constructs in a single investigation to help clarify the relationships between FMS, spatial ability, and mathematics achievement, and to further understanding of the importance and value of PE in primary schools. Primary PE is often looked upon as a soft subject, with teachers choosing to reallocate PE time to more academic subjects, resulting in less than three quarters of schools participating in two or more hours of PE a week. If participating in PE promotes beneficial effects academically, specifically in mathematics, a valued subject, then high quality delivery of PE in primary schools should become a higher priority.

The last decades of research in the psychology of education are increasingly marked by an investigation into constructs from the socioemotional domain – academic emotions, motivation, and interaction. One of the concepts that are getting more research attention is related to students' self-understanding about how good they are at a skill-based task or activity in a particular domain (Darragh, 2016; Radovic et al., 2018). As part of the academic identity, these beliefs can significantly influence student achievements, engagement in school activities, as well as choices regarding the field of education, and later professional orientation (Wan et al., 2021). In mathematics education, identity is additionally important in research because it gives a new perspective in explaining why many students underachieve or disengage from mathematics, without referring to their cognitive abilities (Graven & Heyd-Metzuyanim, 2019). Starting from symbolic interactionism and socio-cultural perspective, we define mathematics identity (MI) as a student's self-conception in the domain of mathematics. The concept gathers both student's self-understanding and the perception of how significant others see them in the context of doing mathematics (Anderson, 2007; Martin, 2009). There are several sources that children can use to shape motivational beliefs about their abilities and interests in different academic domains – including social feedback from significant others, such as parents and teachers, objective achievement evaluation, social comparisons, etc. (Wan et al., 2021). On the other hand, MI could be related to students' expectancy when evaluating possible success in particular tasks or activities (Wigfield et al., 2006). Students' self-relevant beliefs about how good they are in certain domains and expectations of success in specific tasks can significantly shape student engagement, persistence, effort, and, ultimately, achievement. Based on the Expectancy-value theory (EVT) students' expectancy for success in a task and value for a task, will serve as important factors for student engagement and learning, thus influencing student's achievement, persistence, and task choice (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020; Pekrun, 2006). Both MI and motivation for learning occur and develop at different ages and have different developmental paces, interacting with mathematics curriculum, teacher's practices, school climate, family's expectations, gender stereotypes, and many more factors, as students progress from grade to grade. In this paper, we focused on motivation for learning math, and exploreed how the identity of students in primary school is related to their motivation for learning mathematics, specifically perceived competence, and task values. Further, we explored the relationship between motivation, achievement, and math identity in the early years of learning mathematics, which can significantly shape later attitudes toward mathematics.

The main aim of this research was to explore the relationship between math identity and dimensions of motivation on one hand and math achievement on the other, in lower grades of compulsory education when students start with math learning. Considering the social nature of MI and its dependence on the cultural context, the additional aim of our research was to explore those relationships in different cultural contexts, that is, in six European countries. Finally, we investigated the potential gender and grade differences in connection to MI.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment No.12 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2009) affirm that children have the right to participate in all decisions that affect them and call for giving their views full attention in all spheres of life. Such participation entails the construction of learning experiences in which an authentic dialogue between adults, young people and children, and diversity amongst generations, roles and perspectives are key aspects.

The right to be heard is protected in official proceedings before the judicial authority, albeit in a variety of ways (UN General Assembly 2010). At the same time, there are still a number of complex aspects to involvement in the child protection system (Biffi & Montà, 2020). In this situation, the social service and the court are two institutional actors that mediate participation. Therefore, constructing a participatory process and making sense of it becomes a primary educational objective of the services part of the protection system. Moreover, since these educational settings are concerned with more vulnerable children, they can be considered as a sort of “field test” or “magnifying glass” on how the progress in striving to the implementation of children’s rights, as enshrined by policies, is proceeding. Mechanisms to ensure children’s participation in the protection system have been implemented (CoE, 2011) but there seems to be a gap between what is declared and its implementation. Children feel their voices are not being taken into account (Munro, 2011) and this view seems to be also shared by workers, especially when referring to young children (Kriz & Skiveness, 2015; Van Bijleveld et al., 2014).

Consequently, in such a peculiar context, it is essential to investigate the meanings and educational practices that promote children’s participatory rights in decision-making processes. To this end, participatory research in daycare centres for children in a metropolitan area in Northern Italy will be presented. Day care centres for minors are part of Socio-Educational Projects, i.e. those services where access is mediated by the Family Social Service, where there is a mix of social and educational functions and a strong integration with the territory.

Within a larger study exploring the reality of Daycare centres and the participatory practices that are adopted, gathering the meanings that children and practitioners attribute to them, the present contribution will focus on answering the following research question: What does child participation in decision-making processes within Day care centres mean and how is it experienced by the children who attend them?

The paper describes a research project which sought to explore a deeper understanding of the enactment of children’s voice within early years practice settings. The research project built on previous research exploring factors for eliciting young children’s voice. Further previous research had also examined how these factors were manifest when practitioners were working with young children with diverse cultural backgrounds, including those from indigenous communities. Following both projects, the research team sought to illustrate key factors for facilitating children’s voice, that might be understood and employed by practitioners, academics and children. Through a series of dialogic encounters with the research data, the metaphor of a spider’s web emerged as a way in which this might be captured. The application of the web may be useful to interrogate voice practice in educational settings.

In this paper, it is proposed that the spider requires consideration prior to discussion of the web it creates. Acting on the basis that agentic behaviour is required if children’s voice is to be effectively facilitated. We problematise who the spider may be and suggest that there may be a requirement for collaborative working; this collaboration may include practitioners, children, and other members of staff, including management. Indeed, the web may support consideration of who is required to facilitate effective voice in a range of educational settings.

Germane to identifying the ‘spider’ is an assumption that the centre of the web represents an aspiration around which the enactment of voice revolves, a recognition of the imperative to hear the voices of young children. Key to the construction of the web are the spokes that maintain its structure. In our web there are currently eight spokes, which we propose are essential elements of voice practice. These spokes, including definition, inclusivity, power, listening, space and time, process, approach and purpose were surfaced during the Look Who’s Talking Project, as a consequence of dialogue between academics and practitioners.

The web’s anchor points represent context specific mechanisms that support the facilitation of voice, including, for example, professional connections, memberships of social media support groups, or professional learning opportunities that work collaboratively with other like-minded practitioners. There is no expectation that the web is perfect – no ideal web exists. Indeed, the web, its shape, size, strength and anchor points represent practice as it exists or is understood by the spider. The web may be considered a learning tool that allows a more informed understanding of voice in educational settings, thus enabling users to reflect on the extent to which practice is meeting the needs of the individual children with whom they work. While, at this stage in the process, we have identified a number of key concepts that contribute towards the bridging threads, and will share these in the paper, we welcome further dialogue from colleagues in other European policy and practice contexts.

All children have a right to education, yet that right is not realised fully (Murray et al., 2019; OHCHR, 1989, 28). In England - an advanced economy - 22% of children enrolled in school are persistently absent, and England’s government does not even know how many school-aged children are not enrolled in school (Children’s Commissioner for England, 2022). Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and/or those living in poverty are those who are least likely to be in school (FFT Education Datalab, 2021). In England during 2022, 16.5% of all children - and 7% of children aged 3-4 years in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings - had diagnosed SEND, while in 2021, 27% of UK children were living in poverty (Department for Education, 2022; GOV.UK, 2023; Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2023).

Starting school is a major event in a young child’s life: an introduction to statutory education that is powerful in setting expectations for the school experience in the long-term. Young children starting school enter a new world that is usually culturally and organisationally different from home and their ECEC settings: ECEC settings tend to adopt a social pedagogic model, whereas schools are inclined to implement a transmissive banking model (Moss, 2013). For some children, moving to school is a happy process, but for others – especially children with SEND and/or living in poverty – early experiences of school can be difficult (Kaplan et al., 2022).

For decades, educators in many countries have recognised that starting school can present challenges and have adopted strategies aimed at supporting children’s vertical transitions from ECEC or home into school (Kagan and Neuman, 1998). These strategies are many and varied; they include schools’ engagements with whole new classes of children and their families, or with individual children and their families. Some take place before children start school, some once children are in school, and some involve schools working with ECEC settings or with their wider communities (Early et al., 2001). However, whilst transfer strategies may ease some children’s move to school, many young children experience discontinuities when transitioning from pre-school to school, presenting problems for the children and their educators, and disadvantaging or - for those already disadvantaged - further disadvantaging many children longer term (Andrews et al., 2017; Pianta et al., 2007).

The fragmented and diverse English ECEC landscape includes childminders, nursery classes in schools, maintained nursery schools (MNS) and private, voluntary and independent nurseries (Coleman et al., 2022; LaValle et al., 2022). MNS constitute the highest quality ECEC provision, due in large part to their structural quality, including higher staff qualifications (Paull and Popov, 2019; Sylva et al., 2010). Importantly, MNS ‘provide high quality ECEC for children most at risk of underachievement’ (Solvason et al., 2021:78; Sylva et al, 2010). Yet whilst 92% of 3-4-year-olds are enrolled in ECEC provision in England (GOV.UK, 2023), the 600 MNS serving predominantly socially deprived populations in England in 1988 had reduced to 392 by 2019 (Paull and Popov, 2019).

Among remaining MNS in England, by 2021, eight within an English Midlands county had identified increasing challenges for children moving from their ECEC settings to school, particularly children with SEND. The county was characterised by growing numbers of children with SEND, children with SEND missing from education, and reduced funding for children with SEND (Hillery, 2021). Staff from the eight MNS invited university academics to work with them to research MNS and school stakeholders’ views of vertical transitions for children moving from MNS to schools in 2022, especially children with SEND.

Objectives

This study explored the roles of educators in the disciplinary procedures of democratic (open) schools, which are characterised by high levels of student participation and autonomy. Students in these schools participate in all types of decisions, including those relating to disciplining their peers. The study examined the disciplinary procedures in three K-12 democratic schools, all operating participatory disciplinary committees where students and educators serve as adjudicators. The complementary and contradictory roles of educators in these procedures were analysed.

Theoretical Framework

The role of adults in participatory practices

Anchored in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989; hereinafter, UNCRC), the prominence of children's right to participation has emerged in various aspects regulating children's lives (see Gal & Duramy, 2015; Lundy, 2007). Several models that conceptualise participation rights call for a central role for adults. For example, Hart’s model described the sharing of responsibilities between adults and children as levels of participation (Hart, 1992). Later models went further by emphasising how adults ought to facilitate children’s participation (Lundy, 2007; Shier, 2001).

Some studies focused on the role of adults in participatory frameworks designed for children. Richards-Schuster and Timmermans (2017) articulated five roles that adults should play within youth-adult partnerships to facilitate youth participation: (1) training and capacity building, including formal and informal methods; (2) challenging and pushing, i.e., encouraging critical thinking and revealing different sides of a problem; (3) politicising and questioning, i.e., helping youth position their views within a broader political context; (4) legitimising and opening, which refers to paving the path for the youth’s ideas to be heard and listened to by adults; (5) sustaining and gluing, which includes everyday tasks that support the group activity, including logistics, communication, and motivating the group. Other studies described similar roles, all aimed to facilitate and enhance the levels of participation (e.g., Collura et al., 2019; Hall, 2020; Hawke et al., 2018).

None of these studies included an inquiry into adults’ role in balancing participation with other rights or with children’s best interests. This gap in the literature relates to the uncritical approach characterising the research about children’s participation rights (see Author 2, 2021).

The role of educators in democratic schools

In democratic schools, students and educators are considered equal participants in the school community and can participate in the school’s management (see Greenberg, 1991; Hecht, 2010; Wilson, 2015). Disciplinary incidents in these schools are typically resolved by a disciplinary committee, where students and educators serve as adjudicators (see Greenberg, 1991; Hecht, 2010). Despite these schools’ aspiration for egalitarianism, critical analysis of democratic school meetings has revealed how these schools’ high levels of participation are at times used to reproduce power relations between different students and between students and adults (Gawlicz & Millei, 2022; Wilson, 2015). Some qualitative studies have revealed the important roles of educators in democratic schools, as educators are capable of enforcing the school’s rules and norms (Gawlicz & Millei, 2022) and can challenge or support power structures among students (Gawlicz & Millei, 2022; Wilson, 2015).

This literature did not analyse adults’ role in participatory disciplinary committees, where students participate in disciplining their peers. The importance of this inquiry extends beyond the context of democratic schools in light of the growing use of participatory disciplinary practices in schools, including peer-mediation programmes (e.g., Gogos, 2020), school-based youth courts (e.g., Brasof & Peterson, 2018), and restorative approaches (e.g., Darling-Hammond et al., 2020).

To find support for their work with children’s rights, schools around the world have turned to NGOs that offer school programs aiming to strengthen children’s rights at school. Evaluations undertaken of such school programs for children’s rights have shown good effects, for example on school climate, relations, behaviour, and children's influence (Howe & Covell, 2010; Sebba & Robinson, 2010; Halås Torbjörnsen, 2020), but also raised some concerns (Sebba & Robinson, 2010; Mejias & Starkey, 2012; Webb, 2014; Dunhill, 2019). The evidence presented for a correlation between learning about rights and positive effects such as respectful behaviour and increased student influence is, according to Jerome and colleagues (Jerome et al., 2015), rather weak. The authors argue that most studies have focused more on implementation processes than outcomes. They also highlight methodological weaknesses in some studies, in the form of low response rates in survey studies, few interviews in interview studies, mainly drawing on teachers’ views and narratives, or the views of students that were selected by teachers. To shed better light on the impact of school programs for children’s rights, there seems to be a need for further research with a rigorous research design.

Most children’s rights programs offered by NGO’s put children’s right to be involved in processes of deliberation and decision making in school in the center of attention. Students’, teachers’ and policymakers’ perceptions and experiences of children’s influence is also a well-researched topic (Johnson, 2017; Perry-Hazan, 2021). Studies have often reported that children find their opportunities to influence matters that are relevant to them to be very limited (Emerson & Lloyd, 2017; Lake, 2011).

One of the programs available is UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA), which was developed by UNICEF UK. The UK version was brought to Sweden and modified by UNICEF Sweden to suit the Swedish school culture. It was also renamed to Rights-based school. Since the start in 2010 the Swedish version of the program has spread and is now used in about 30 Swedish schools.

No research-based evaluation of Rights-based school has so far been done. Commissioned by UNICEF Sweden, we currently undertake a large-scale evaluation research project, aiming to elucidate if, and in that case how, Rights-based school strengthens schools’ work with children’s rights. In this presentation we report on the first findings, focusing on student influence. One of the main objectives of Rights-based School is to increase students’ influence in school, specified as: “Each student is regularly given opportunities to take part in the development of school and to express her/his meaning and be heard in matters that concern her/hem. Decision makers are given the opportunity to take children’s views into account and to provide feedback on decisions.”

The research questions addressed in our initial analysis are:

(1) How do teachers in Rights-based schools view and describe their work with student influence?

(2) How do students in Rights-based schools view and experience their influence in school?

(3) Can differences between teachers’ and students’ views be identified?

(4) Can differences between schools that are new to the program, and a school that have worked with the program for a long time be identified?

The initial findings reported on in this paper present an opportunity to reflect on the continuing work and analyses. The main study will when ready not only provide grounds for UNICEF Sweden to revise their Rights-based school program, but will also contribute to the international child rights community with knowledge about how organised rights-based school programs may strengthen children’s rights in educational settings, as well as point out aspects in such programs that need to be reconsidered.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, approximately 75,000 people have fled from Ukraine to Switzerland (SEM, 2023), including a large number of children and youths of school age. In addition to refugees from Ukraine, families with children from other areas of crisis are increasingly seeking refuge in Switzerland. This poses major challenges not only to the refugees themselves, but also to schools and teachers. Most children and youths with a refugee background are confronted with additional challenges – they not only have to settle into a new social and cultural context, but also face burdens such as grief, trauma, and precarious residence status.

Although the phenomenon of families with children of school age seeking asylum in Switzerland has been experienced repeatedly, and subsequently large numbers of refugee children have been enrolled in schools, concepts on how to react to this situation were slow to emerge, and the measures taken by the cantonal authorities were rather small scale and pragmatic (see Truniger, 2018).

The group of refugee pupils is very diverse, the children and young people come from different educational backgrounds and due to the flight, in some cases their educational biographies have been interrupted for months or even years. While refugees from Ukraine “are granted protection status S” (SEM, 2023) after their arrival in Switzerland, those seeking asylum from other countries of origin must undergo an asylum procedure (see SEM, 2022). As a result the families from other countries than Ukraine are accommodated in various collective accommodation and subsequently have to experience several involuntary changes of residence and school even after arriving in Switzerland. In contrast, the enrolment and schooling of refugee children from Ukraine (with protection status S) is more continuous: they are assigned directly to a municipality and are enrolled there either in a regular class or in a separate offer. In Switzerland, the right to education is guaranteed in both the Federal Constitution and the UN CRC, which has been ratified for more than thirty years meanwhile.

In the paper, firstly, I will analyse the question of how school as an institution deals with children and youths of refugee background and whether the right to education is successfully applied.

Secondly, I will examine the enrolment practices in concrete terms and how the right to education is implemented.

Thirdly, the paper will address challenges experienced by families and teachers when refugee children and youths attend school.

Education is both an important factor shaping children and their families to migrate to Europe, and “a key element for refugee and migrant children’s social inclusion into host communities” (UNHCN, UNICEF & IOM 2019:1, UN General Assembly 2016).

Paying attention to the role of education for refugee and migrant children’s wellbeing, international documents stipulated the responsibility of states to protect the human rights of refugee and migrant children, particularly unaccompanied migrant children. This includes the responsibility to provide access to qualified and equitable education, ensuring that the best interest of the child is a primary consideration in all policies concerning children (UN General Assembly 2016, United Nations 1989, United Nations 2023).

However, due to the absence of legal mechanisms to request asylum or migrate to Europe, refugee and migrant children often lack the necessary protection to guarantee their mental and physical health. Thousands of migrant children are stranded for long periods in African or Asian countries exposed to human treatment and abuse by mafias. Besides experiencing abuse, migrant children died in their attempts to migrate to Europe crossing the Mediterranean sea (UNICEF 2023, UNICEF España 2023). Moreover, restrictive migration policies implemented since 2016 in order to guarantee the right of European democracies to regulate their state territories have considerably limited the rights of migrant-refugee children (Benhabib 2004a, 2004b; Thorburn, 2018, 2019a, 2019b; Francia, Neubauer, & Edling, 2021).

However, in February 2022, the European Parliament showed a more open migration policy regarding refugee children, by approving a resolution to protect Ukrainian children and young people fleeing the war with Russia. In this resolution, the countries and members of the EU are committed to implement measures to protect children and young people fleeing the violence of war, facilitating their integration into the societies of the host countries. Nevertheless, these positive measures targeted to Ukrainian children can be implemented in different forms and extension at national level (European Parliament 2022; European Union Agency of Asylum 2023; Noticias Parlamento Europeo 2022). In Spain the “Order PCM/169/2022, of 9 March, which develops the procedure for the recognition of temporary protection for persons affected by the conflict in Ukraine” stipulates that all applications must be resolved within a maximum period of 24 hours. Poland introduced an act of March 12, 2022, on aid to Ukrainian citizens in relation to the armed conflict which facilitated the organisation of the refugees’ stay in the country. Even In Sweden Ukranian refugees can apply for a temporary residence permit according to the EU's mass migration directive, if they have arrived in Sweden on or after October 30, 2021, and have stayed in Sweden since they date of their arrival. If they don't meet the conditions the need to apply for asylum to receive this protection.

In order to develop comparative knowledge on refugee and migrant children as rights holders in EU countries, this contribution analyses current education and migration policies in Poland, Spain and Sweden during the year 2022.

In this research, Sara Ahmed's (2007) concept of whiteness is used in order to pay attention to what kind of children's bodies are recognized as rights holders in the selected countries as well as in which contexts this recognition takes place.

Following questions guide the study:

• In which way do education and migration policies guarantee refugees and migrant children 'rights to and in education in each selected country?
• Which similarities and differences concerning these policies can be found between the selected EU-countries ?

A composite narrative is a story constructed using multiple children’s voices to present research findings. These stories can resonate with readers, while also capturing research rigour by conveying the properties and categories that are used to develop qualitative research findings (Johnston et al., 2021). Composite narratives offer new and effective methods for giving children voice in educational research, fulfilling children’s rights as stated within the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989). Article 12 of the UNCRC outlines children’s right ‘to have a say about what they think should happen when adults are making decisions that affect them and to have their opinions taken into account’ (UNCRC, 1989). This international law entitles students to be involved in decisions about their education.

Research methods like composite narratives provide ways of giving children ‘a say,’ or ‘voice’, in their education. Thus, educational research offers a way to fulfil the rights of children outlined in Article 12 of the UNCRC (Cook-Sather, 2020). Educational researchers can work with students to generate research findings that capture students’ experiences (Sargeant & Gillett-Swan, 2015). The findings can be communicated by constructing composite narratives that convey children’s voice in a way that resonates (Johnston et al., 2021).

This paper contributes to the development of methods for conveying children’s voice in educational research by outlining a process for constructing composite narratives. The process builds upon the work of other qualitative researchers who have developed methods for constructing composite narratives (Willis, 2019). The result is a set of methods that can be used to convey student voice in educational research. Other qualitative researchers from a range of backgrounds and disciplines might also use these methods to convey children’s voices, as more and more researchers in social sciences use composite narratives to present their findings (McElhinney & Kennedy, 2022).

Composite narratives can be constructed using a six-step method, which is useful for conveying children’s perspectives to the adults that make decisions about their education. An example of a composite narrative and how it was constructed will be presented, which is taken from a research project conducted in Western Australia. The research approach was based upon the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969), which informed the development of grounded theory methods. Straussian grounded theory methods were used to develop research findings together with participants, who were adolescent children. The study included 25 fifteen-year-old students, who contributed more than 175 classroom observations and 100 interviews. The children in the study worked with the researcher to generate findings that answer the research question: “How do students experience their perceived teachers’ expectations of them?”

During the full presentation at the European Conference for Educational Research (ECER), an example of a composite narrative called 'My socks don't matter today' will be given to the audience for them to read. The example narrative will be printed and an advance copy is available through email (o.johnston@ecu.edu.au). The narrative uses a singular first-person voice, but it is a ‘composite’ of quotes from interviews with children who contributed to its development (Johnston et al., 2021). The narrative conveys the finding that was generated together with the children: that students experience teachers as having high expectations when teachers seek to understand more than students as ‘students’, but as people with whole lives.

The composite narrative was constructed to convey this finding back to the children’s educators so their voices could be heard and acted upon, fulfilling the children’s rights in Article 12 (UNCRC, 1989). The methods section below begins to explain how the finding was generated with the children and how the narrative was constructed.

Participatory research approaches – in general, not specifically targeted at students – are characterized by several central components: 1) participation of non-researching actors as co-researchers in the research process; 2) empowerment of these partners through learning processes, competence development, and individual and collective (self-)empowerment; and 3) the dual objective of researching and changing social reality and the associated intervention character and action/application orientation of research (von Unger, 2014, p. 10). Beside the development of participatory research, a new understanding of childhood emerged, according to which children and adolescents are subjects with their own rights and not simply objects or beings to be protected (James & Prout, 1997). This also applies to research (Hammersley, 2017). Participatory research with students means that they should not be studied, but they should be involved in the research process and should be also assisted in building their own view and meaning considering their situation (Lundy & McEvoy, 2012). Furthermore, participation in research is seen as an advanced form of participation and thus as an important source of participatory experiences (Hüpping & Büker, 2019). However, the approach – children as co-researchers – evokes many controversial discourses (Bradbury-Jones & Taylor, 2015; Hammersley, 2017).

In this paper we present an ongoing design-based-research project (Euler, 2014) taking place in Switzerland. The school improvement project has the aim to improve students’ learning within schools through student participation. School improvement processes should be shaped through the cooperation between teachers, students, and researchers. Various participatory settings were implemented (Author et al., 2022) to approach the central question of the study: How must learning processes be designed so that students feel supported in their learning?

Students were expected to come up with new, or even unconventional ideas to change school practices.

However, they sometimes only know their own school practice, wherefore they sometimes lack alternatives. This gave rise to the idea of reciprocal school visits, with the aim of observing concrete classroom activities in another school. A more abstract aim was to support reflection about learning and observing learning situation from a new perspective. The research team suggested the method of systematic classroom observation addressing students and teachers as co-researchers.

In this contribution the authors describe the process of how the observational study was prepared, conducted, and followed up. We will explore the question of what kind of effects the process triggers in the schools – but also among the participating teachers, students, and researchers.

Children have a right to be heard, and for their views to be given due weight (UN, 1989). To be given due weight requires an adult decision-maker to listen to those views. We know from the vast student voice literature that issues of voice are located in structures and relations of power, and that who is speaking is just as important as what is said, and what is said changes according to who is speaking, and who is listening (see Cook-Sather, 2006; Rudduck and Fielding, 2006; Taylor and Robinson, 2009; Fielding, 2004;). What traditionally receives less attention in this literature is the administration of due weight: the listening. This is perhaps because due weight becomes drowned out by a fixation with children’s capacity, or alleged lack thereof (Tisdall, 2018; Daly, 2018). There is no accepted understanding of how to weigh children’s views, and it has become something of an obstacle to children’s rights, particularly in cases where children’s wishes are divergent from prevailing orthodoxy (Daly, 2018; Cairns et al, 2018). This paper opens up debate about listening, and what this means for attributing the ‘due’ in due weight. The questions we begin with is: what does it mean to listen?

A common assumption about listening is that it means the same for everyone, but children listening to adults is not understood in the same way as adults listening to children, or children listening to other children. Frequently interpreted as the decoding of verbalised language, children are viewed as either needing to learn to listen ‘better’, or as deserving to be listened to (Gallagher et al, 2017). However, conceiving of listening in this way assumes the verbalisation of children’s views, and overlooks the role of silence in participation. It therefore advances an impoverished understanding of ‘voice’ and children’s right to be heard. It also fails to take account of us living in-relation with one another, as ‘one among others’ (Splitter, 2022a, 2022b) and the role this has to play in ‘due weight’ and attributing credibility to children’s views.

Drawing upon Fricker’s (2007) epistemic injustice, we claim in this paper that acts of hearing are an exercise of power, but that the implications of this power for ‘due weight’ have not been thoroughly examined. The issue of the epistemic injustice that children encounter is problematic (Kennedy (2010); Murris, 2013; Mohr Lone & Burroughs, 2016; Cassidy & Mohr Lone, 2020), particularly when considering notions of the right to be heard. Indeed, Fricker (2007) argues that the sort of listening required is as much to what is not said as to what is said – a type of listening that requires a ‘responsible hearer’. So, how do we listen to silence? We suggest an ‘expanded listening’ can help us understand the role of silence in participation and shed some light on the concept of ‘non-participation’.

Drawing on the work by Leithwood et al., (2006) and Day, Gu & Sammons (2016), this paper reports on findings from a 3-year research project aimed at investigating the impact of school leadership on teachers’ work and pupils’ outcomes. This study is based on existing literature that points to the direct and indirect influence of school leaders on pupil learning and outcomes. Such an influence is often moderated by other factors such as the sociocultural context of schools, teachers' work, classroom dynamics, the school-family relationship, school culture, as well as, leaders' personal characteristics (Day, Gu & Sammons, 2016).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressure on school leaders has increased. They had to deal with a wide array of unpredictable and changing scenarios with limited options and resources leading to a 'perfect storm with imperfect leadership answers' (Harris & Jones, 2020, p. 244). Also, the COVID-19 pandemic had consequences for pupil learning and achievement (Engzell et al.,2020; Flores et al.,2021; NFER,2020). Among the abrupt changes triggered by the pandemic, the sudden and compulsory shift from face-to-face to online teaching and learning, and the constraints and changes in the experience and perception of the physical and relational space of the school, particularly on the part of the pupils are highlighted. It is, therefore, important to look at leadership practices and school functioning, particularly in such challenging circumstances (Harris & Jones, 2020), taking into account pupil voice.

Educational research recognises pupils as key informants in understanding school dynamics (Day, 2004, Horgan, 2016, Ansell et al., 2012) and teaching and learning improvement (Mitra, 2004, Flutter & Rudduck, 2004, Roberts & Nash, 2009). Moreover, pupils are very proficient at understanding the attitudes, intentions and behaviour of teachers and other educational actors (Day, 2004). Listening to pupils is key to improving teaching and learning (Flutter & Ruduck, 2004). This paper explores pupils’ views and their experience of schooling during and beyond the pandemic as well as their perception in relation to the work of the school leaders during such period.

The presentation will detail an ongoing project, the ‘Visualising Opportunities: Inclusion for Children, Education and Society’ (VOICES) project. VOICES has been designed to involve children, young people and the adults that work with them to explore issues and concerns relating to children and young people’s experiences of inclusion in education. The intention of the research is to provide spaces for exploring how children’s rights can be invigorating by revisiting how inclusive educational practice is, or can be, implemented.

The objective of the VOICES project is to explore how children and young people might be included within the design and delivery of education in a more inclusive way. This intention aligns to the requirement to “recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity” as stated by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 28.1, 1989) and the need for children to be consulted on practices that affect them (Section 2B of UK Children and Families Act, 2004). However, despite drastic changes in the experience of education between 2020 and 2022 due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the UK Government has offered minimal guidance on how teachers can listen and respond to the personal experiences of children which might be affecting their engagement with education. In order to start to address this gap in guidance, we seek to share and discuss examples of pedagogies that can be used to help practitioners, parents and researchers to understand how the experiences and priorities of children and young people can impact on their health and wellbeing and therefore ability to engage in education. We feel the sharing of our work is timely because of the rise of concerns over mental health. In the UK over 25% of 11 to 16 year olds with a mental health problem reporting self-harm or attempts to take their own life (NHS Digital, 2021). This same group are almost twice as likely to have been bullied or bullied others and are more likely to have been excluded from school (ibid, 2021). The ongoing challenges presented by our post-pandemic society have created an urgent need to explore innovative and creative ways to engage children who are at risk of exclusion and mental health difficulties and to foster new and enterprising inclusive practice which makes best use of the financial resources available, especially in light of the radical reforms planned for education in the latest SEN Green Paper (DfE/DoH, 2022).

In addressing this need, a key tenet of the VOICES project has been to reject the idea that there is a clear, fixed or incontestable understanding about what constitutes educational inclusion (Dunne et al. 2018) or good practice. Rather, we use a qualitative, creative arts-based approach to find out about the realities, feelings and beliefs of children and young people in relation to their experiences of education. We adopt this approach because we feel that education can be an important site for altering discriminatory practices and changing attitudes about the slippery concept of inclusion (Hodkinson, 2020). This is necessary, as it has been argued that for changes to be implemented that challenge the status quo we need to be willing to interrogate norms and expectations (hooks, 2003). To do so, in the VOICES project children and young people’s voices and opinions are foregrounded and brought into dialogue with education professionals, relevant UK legislation and UN guidance relating to inclusion and expectations, to determine how their diverse voices and experiences can inform curricula, teaching and learning (Allan, 2015; Nyachae, 2016; Rix, 2020).

‘Crisis’ is a broadly used term referring to an exceedingly dangerous or difficult situation where something of value is under threat and requires urgent addressing (Boin et al., 2020; MacNeil Vroomen et al., 2013). Early conceptualisations of crisis theory explained intense psychological distress as emerging when individuals face a problem which is both meaningfully threatening to their life goals and cannot be resolved through the application of normal problem-solving mechanisms (Caplan, 1964; Parad & Caplan, 1960; Rapoport, 1962).

What remains unclear is how crisis theory applies to children, a social group who are frequently labelled as being ‘in crisis’ within literature. This includes issues such as increasingly poor mental health amongst youths (Mind, 2020), child homelessness (Rhoades et al., 2018) or cyberbullying (Zaborskis et al., 2019). Additionally, children are among the most vulnerable social group affected by disasters, due to their need for a safe and stable environment to promote healthy development (Agrawal & Kelley, 2020). They are often disproportionately impacted during times of economic depravity (Lawrence et al., 2019), political conflict (Jones, 2008) and natural disasters (Curtis et al., 2000) due to infringements placed on their rights to access education and to participate in decisions which affect their lives (Harper et al., 2010). Despite this, therapeutic interventions specifically designed to support children in the aftermath of a crisis situation have been shown to fail at improving their mental health symptoms (Thabet et al., 2005) or suffer from a high drop-off rate (Hendricks-Ferguson, 2000; Rhoades et al., 2018), suggesting they may be limited in their accessibility for children and young people. A possible explanation for the ineffectiveness of these services is that they are often targeted at the family system and may overlook the specific needs of the child (O'Connor et al., 2014). As a result, judgements about children’s needs may primarily represent what adults perceive them to be and fail to capture the child’s unique experience (Oakley, 2002). Therefore, improving the effectiveness of these intervention programmes may require a reconceptualization of crisis from the perspective of children.

Children are often limited or even discouraged from taking action in managing crisis, presumably due to their socialization within power-imbalanced institutions such as school (Hohti & Karlsson, 2014). Despite this, research has found that children often have a unique interpretation of policy which affects them and can feel that their voices are disregarded within decision-making (Perry-Hazan & Lambrozo, 2018).

The relevant research is adult oriented and very little research intends to make links between conceptualisations of crisis and children’s rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (United Nations, 1989), and its near universal ratifcation by state parties of the United Nations (UN), has promoted developmental, survival, protection and participation rights as fundamental for children. Subsequently, the UNCRC, and children’s right to participation has gained recognition in education systems and curricula. Educational contexts work within a wide range of legislative requirements, adhering to regulatory standards and curriculum documents. These may be designed with reference to the requirements of the UNCRC to promote the best interests of children and uphold their rights to provision and protection. However, when it comes to crisis, the obligation of adults to protect children “overwrites” children’s participatory rights.

Thus this study aimed to investigate how children attribute meaning to the term, ‘crisis’ through their narrative discourse. Two secondary aims were, firstly, to encourage children to evaluate the support systems which may provide aid to them during a crisis and, secondly, to delineate what children perceive to be their role within crisis management.

This is an interactive research workshop to support colleagues who are committed to promoting children’s voice in research, in their pedagogic practices and in the learning environments co-created in communities. It is a complementary part of our participation in the conference, together with our paper presentation (Cassidy, Beaton et al) reflecting our dialogic and participatory intent. Drawing on our previous work addressing the lacuna of work around implementing Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC: UN 1989) with children under seven, the Look Who’s Talking Project published eight factors for voice with young children (Wall et al. 2019; Arnott and Wall, 2022): Definition, Power, Inclusivity, Listening, Space and Time, Approaches, Processes and Purposes. We assert that for children’s talk to be encouraged, adults have to be engaged in talk too and so these factors have been presented along with a set of provocation style questions. We propose that by outlining factors and posing questions in this way we are providing the foundation for translating the recommendations of the UNCRC Article 12 (UN 1989), with respect to the right to voice, into practice for young children.

We have proposed that these eight factors should work in harmony to prompt reflective and strategic thinking for all those who work with and for children. Such work, we assert, should be undertaken in such a way as to ensure that the dialogue is ongoing and adapting to the children’s and adults’ growing competence and confidence. The elicitation of voice, therefore, requires a dialogue that is receptive to the contexts and individuals involved; this dialogue obviously should include children. The dialogue ought to involve people interacting with one another, but also with the concepts featured in the eight factors. While each factor may be considered individually, it is also important that they are treated as interconnected and interdependent. For example, listening is vital in eliciting voice, and action will not be meaningful if due thought and dialogue does not take place in relation to defining voice itself or if there is no commitment to time and space for voice in practice.

Our ethos is towards a culture of collaboration and voice, and the intent of this work is to establish a space where knowledge exchange is multi-directional as we share the factors, but also value, learn and build from existing practices. Building on an interactive workshop at ECEERA (Arnott et al. 2017), this workshop will use dialogic methods to co-construct the understanding of underpinning factors and key research questions in children’s voice. Here, we will firstly present for exploration and interrogation the eight voice factors and the questions they evoke; participants will then explore the utility and priority of the eight factors for their work and contexts; finally, we will introduce the Web – our current dynamic iteration of the visual framework of the 8 factors to explore and interrogate practice. The Web provides a metaphor which can be used to facilitate professional reflection on the development of voice practice by either an individual or a group of practitioners. Key to the purpose of the metaphor of the web is that the agency lies with the individual or group of practitioners who themselves determine priorities and the modes (threads) by which the eight factors are linked together so that voice is promoted multi-modally.

All networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.