25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Paper
The Complementary and Contradictory Roles of Educators in Schools With High Levels of Student Participation
Idan Zak-Doron, Lotem Perry-Hazan
University of Haifa, Israel
Presenting Author: Zak-Doron, Idan
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).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study examined three democratic schools in Israel. School A, the largest among them, has over 600 students, age range 4–18. School B, a smaller and newer school, has over 200 students, age range 6–18. School C is the smallest, having around 100 students, age range 4–19. Schools A and B follow the Hadera model, based on Hecht’s Democratic School of Hadera, and School C follows the Sudbury model, based on Greenberg’s Sudbury Valley school. Accordingly, educators in Schools A and B teach classes and act as personal mentors for students as part of their job description, whereas the educators’ job description in School C is more fluid.
The study is based on qualitative methods. It draws on semi-structured interviews with 68 participants, including children (n = 37, aged 8-19), educators (n = 18, 16 teachers and two school principals), and parents (n = 13). All the adults and 16 of the children participated in individual semi-structured interviews, while the remaining 21 children participated in focus groups of 2-3 children each. The interviews were conducted during 2019-2020. Most participants (N = 53) were interviewed in person, with the remainder interviewed via Zoom during the Covid-19-related school closures (N = 17). The interview protocols included questions regarding the school's disciplinary system, the participants' views about this system, and their experiences with the system. All interviews were recorded and transcribed.
In addition, relevant documents were collected and analysed. These documents included school rules, relevant forms, and documents delineating the disciplinary committees' duties and ideology. The research procedures were approved by the Ministry of Education (#10938) and by the IRB of our university (#218/18).
We used a grounded theory approach to analyse the data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). To ensure reliability, each author reviewed the transcriptions separately and formulated categories. We consolidated the categories into three main themes describing the role of educators in the participatory disciplinary procedures: (1) promoting maximal student participation at the individual and school level; (2) constraining student participation and balancing it with other rights and interests; and (3) providing students with guidance and support in the participation process. We also conducted a theoretical sampling to improve our understanding of the findings and consulted the literature on the roles of adults in participatory frameworks and democratic schools. Dedoose software was used in the final coding phase to analyse the data.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings reveal educators' complementary and contradictory roles in the participatory disciplinary process. On the one hand, educators promote maximal student participation at the individual and school levels. For example, educators tended to minimise their own participation to create space for children’s voice, and advocated for maximal authority to be granted to the participatory disciplinary committee.
On the other hand, educators also play a balancing role, constraining the participation of some children in order to protect the rights of others or the best interests of the child whose participation is being restricted. For example, educators stopped violent and harmful behaviour and addressed sensitive disciplinary cases without consulting the participatory disciplinary committee.
In addition, the findings reveal a third set of roles that educators play––providing guidance and support to allow maximal participation while protecting the children from potential ramifications. For example, educators provided the members of the participatory disciplinary committee with information about the school rules, the possible outcomes of their decisions, and the educational implications of these decisions. They also provided the participating children with emotional support.
The study facilitates a deeper understanding of the different roles adults assume in organisations that subscribe to a comprehensive ethos of participation, including schools that adopt a whole-school participation ethos and various types of youth-led organisations. The study’s focus on the intersection of promoting and constraining children’s participation contributes to the scant literature offering a critical analysis of participation rights.
The study may also help educators conceptualise their behaviour in disciplinary procedures. Making sense of these procedures may assist educators in resolving dilemmas and enable them to reconcile their approach with the school’s ethos and justify their actions to themselves and their colleagues.
ReferencesBrasof, M., & Peterson, K. (2018). Creating procedural justice and legitimate authority within school discipline systems through youth court. Psychology in the Schools, 55(7), 832–849. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22137
Collura, J. J., Raffle, H., Collins, A. L., & Kennedy, H. (2019). Creating spaces for young people to collaborate to create community change: Ohio’s youth-led initiative. Health Education and Behavior, 46(1_suppl), 44S-52S. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198119853571
Darling-Hammond, S., Fronius, T. A., Sutherland, H., Guckenburg, S., Petrosino, A., & Hurley, N. (2020). Effectiveness of restorative justice in US K-12 schools : A review of quantitative research. Contemporary School Psychology, 24, 295–308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-020-00290-0
Gal, T., & Duramy, B. F. (2015). International perspectives and empirical findings on child participation: From social exclusion to child-inclusive policies. Oxford University Press.
Gawlicz, K., & Millei, Z. (2022). Critiquing the use of children’s voice as a means of forging the community in a Polish democratic school. Ethnography and Education, 17(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2021.1990100
Gogos, L. (2020). Peer mediation: Equipping student leaders with the ability to resolve internal conflicts. Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, 21(2), 349–360.
Greenberg, D. (1991). Free at last: The Sudbury Valley School. The Sudbury Valley Press.
Hall, S. F. (2020). A conceptual mapping of three anti-adultist approaches to youth work. Journal of Youth Studies, 23(10), 1293–1309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2019.1669775
Hart, R. A. (1992). Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship. UNICEF.
Hawke, L. D., Relihan, J., Miller, J., McCann, E., Rong, J., Darnay, K., Docherty, S., Chaim, G., & Henderson, J. L. (2018). Engaging youth in research planning, design and execution: Practical recommendations for researchers. Health Expectations, 21(6), 944–949. https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12795
Hecht, Y. (2010). Democratic education: A beginning of a story. Alternative Education Resource Organization.
Lundy, L. (2007). “Voice” is not enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927–942. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701657033
Richards-Schuster, K., & Timmermans, R. (2017). Conceptualizing the role of adults within youth-adult partnerships: An example from practice. Children and Youth Services Review, 81, 284–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.07.023
Shier, H. (2001). Pathways to participation: Openings, opportunities and obligations. Children & Society, 15(2), 107–117. https://doi.org/10.1002/chi.617
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research. Sage.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. (1989). UN Doc. A/RES/44/25. http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b38f0.html
Wilson, M. A. F. (2015). Radical democratic schooling on the ground: Pedagogical ideals and realities in a Sudbury school. Ethnography and Education, 10(2), 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2014.959978
25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Paper
Students’ and Teachers’ Understanding of Student Influence in Swedish Rights-Based Schools
Ann Quennerstedt1, Lisa Isenström2
1Örebro University, Sweden; 2Karlstad University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Quennerstedt, Ann;
Isenström, Lisa
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.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe data for this paper was created in five different schools that use Rights-based school. Four of the schools had just started working with the program, while one school had used it for eight years. This school makes it possible to examine whether long engagement makes a difference. Interviews with teachers and students in years 2, 5 and 8 were conducted during two following years (2021 and 2022). One more set of interviews will be done in 2023. Initial analysis has been carried out of the data from teachers and students in year 5, and it is the result of this analysis that is reported in the current paper. The sample for this analysis is:
2021: 20 teachers, 61 students (28 interviews)
2022: 18 teachers, 67 students (34 interviews)
Total: 38 teachers, 128 students (62 interviews)
The interviews were semi-structured. Teachers were individually interviewed and the students were mostly interviewed in pairs. Questions were asked to understand how students experience their influence in school and how teachers view student influence.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Qualitative content analysis (Bengtsson, 2016; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) was undertaken to understand meanings of student influence expressed by the interviewees. The analysis was done with the aid of NVivo software. Frequency analysis complemented the content analysis to identify which meanings were most represented in the teachers’ and students’ statements.
By conducting a large number of interviews with both teachers and students who has not been selected by principals or teachers, we claim that our research design avoids weaknesses pointed out in previous studies. The large number of interviews provides rigor to the content analysis and comparison of students’ and teachers’ perceptions. The main evaluation study also includes interviews with teachers and students in schools that do not use Rights-based school. The inclusion of these will significantly strengthen the findings of the evaluation study. These interviews have not yet been analysed and are therefore not included in this paper.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIn schools that use Rights-based school, various councils (student council, food council, safety council) seem to serve as important arenas for realising students’ right to influence matters that concern them. In the new schools the students also bring up less formal ways to influence their school day and environment. They say that they can just talk to the teachers if there is something they want. They find this mode of influence more efficient than going through the formal processes. This informal influence is not mentioned by any student in the school that has used the program for eight years. Thus, this finding raises questions of whether the program functions limiting to some kinds of student influence, by emphasising influence via formal processes.
The teachers almost unanimously express that the content of classroom work is directed by the curriculum, and that students therefore cannot exercise much influence over educational content. However, by involving the students in decisions about how to work teachers have found ways to involve students in classroom decision making. The students do not seem to agree with this picture. In the new schools, influence over working methods is only mentioned in a third of the interviews, and in the established school possibilities to affect working methods is only mentioned in two interviews, the students even accentuating that working methods are planned and decided by the teachers. A striking finding is that students’ perception of what they can influence most in classroom work is the content.
When asked about what they believe to be limiting for student influence, the students express very clearly that the main hindrance for student influence in school is dire economic circumstances. Interestingly, when teachers are asked about what they think limits students’ influence, only one teacher mentions economy as a hindering factor.
ReferencesDunhill, A. (2019). The language of the human rights of children: a critical discourse analysis. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Hull).
Emerson, L., & Lloyd, K. (2017). Measuring children’s experience of their right to participate in school and community: A rights-based approach. Children & Society, 31, 120-133.
Howe, R.B., & Covell, K. (2010). Miseducating children about their rights. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 5(2), 91-102.
Jerome, L., Emerson, L., Lundy, L., & Orr, K. (2015). Teaching and learning about child rights. A study of implementation in 26 countries. Queens University Belfast/UNICEF.
Johnson, V. (2017). Moving beyond voice in children and young people’s participation. Action Research, 15(1), 104-124.
Lake, K. (2011). Character education from a children’s rights perspective: An examination of elementary students’ perspectives and experience. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 19, 679-690.
Mejias, S., & Starkey, H. (2012). Critical citizens or neo-liberal consumers? Utopian visions and pragmatic uses of human rights education in a secondary school in England. In Politics, participation & power relations (pp. 119-136). Brill.
Perry-Hazan, L. (2021). Conceptualising conflicts between student participation and other rights and interests. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 42(2), 184-198.
Sebba, J., & Robinson, C. (2010). Evaluation of UNICEF UK’s rights respecting schools award (RRSA). London: UNICEF UK.
Webb, R. (2014). Doing the rights thing: An ethnography of a dominant discourse of rights in a primary school in England (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex).
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