Conference Agenda

The research reported in this paper examines how and about what students’ participation and influence are enacted in Swedish rights-based schools.

In recent decades, a substantial body of research has examined students’ participation in education, variously conceptualised as student voice, agency, and influence. Much of this scholarship draws on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), particularly Article 12, which asserts children’s right to express views on matters affecting them (UN, 1989). National policy frameworks in many countries similarly mandate that students be included in everyday school decision‑making (Hudson, 2012). Beyond constituting a right in itself, student participation has been linked to, for example, enhanced learning engagement, well-being, and civic involvement (Baroutsis et al., 2016; Emerson & Lloyd, 2017; Perry‑Hazan, 2021). Participation skills further support the enactment of other rights by cultivating students’ understanding of themselves as actors with the power to shape the conditions that shape their lives.

To strengthen children’s rights and participation in schools, several rights‑based programmes have been developed, for example UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA), later adapted and adjusted to other national contexts (e.g. Denmark - Rettighedsskola, Sweden – Rättighetsbaserad Skola). While research shows that children are aware of their right to express opinions, less is known about the extent and quality of their realisation in practice (Emerson & Lloyd, 2017). Studies reveal discrepancies between teachers’ and students’ perceptions, with many students reporting limited influence over classroom practices (Forde et al., 2018; Martinez Sainz et al., 2024). Formal participatory structures are also criticised when elected representatives are expected to represent an entire student group (Forde et al., 2018).

A persistent challenge is the lack of consensus on what student participation entails (Lloyd & Emerson, 2017). Scholars argue that theoretical development has lagged behind policy and practice (Horgan et al., 2017). Participation is variably defined, ranging from mere presence to meaningful involvement in decision‑making (Thomas, 2007). Typologies such as Hart’s (1992) ladder remain influential. The UNCRC‑centred understanding of participation, though widely adopted, does not explicitly include shared decision‑making nor fully address cultural variation (Lundy, 2007; Emerson & Lloyd, 2017). Lundy’s (2007) widely applied model—comprising space, voice, audience, and influence—clarifies procedural elements of Article 12. It also states that children should be asked whether they wish to take part in joint decision‑making or not. Alternative human rights frameworks, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), position decision‑making more centrally and offer different implications for school contexts.

Previous research further suggests that participation is frequently reduced to offering students choices. Elvstrand and Lago (2020) identify four categories of choice‑making, ranging from simply having a choice to making the “right” choice, highlighting the complexity of how influence is enacted in practice.

This study aims to examine how students in Swedish rights‑based schools experience opportunities for influence and what areas of school life they can affect. It is part of a larger project evaluating the impact of a rights‑based school model. The present paper focuses specifically on the forms and content of student participation and influence, as well as students’ comprehension. This research draws on 205 interviews with students in rights‑based schools. The guiding research questions are:

• How is participation and influence enacted in schools implementing a rights‑based programme?
• What areas of school practice do students perceive they can influence?
• How do students experience their participation and influence in school?

The study employs established participation typologies and rights‑based conceptual frameworks to illuminate students’ accounts and to contribute to ongoing theoretical development in the field.

Children’s human rights education (CHRE) aims to foster awareness, participation and agency through both explicit learning about rights and implicit experiences through rights-respecting environments (Quennerstedt, 2022). While research has examined CHRE in primary and secondary education, less attention has been given to how these principles are addressed and enacted within higher education, particularly by university students themselves. This gap is striking given the central role of higher education in shaping future professionals responsible for designing and implementing rights-respecting educational environments.

Recent comparative research on initial teacher education across five European countries, including Switzerland, highlights that CHRE and the aims of education set out in Article 29 of the UNCRC remain insufficiently and unevenly embedded in teacher education programmes. Attention to children’s rights is often implicit, and weakly articulated across policy, programme and course levels (Isenström et al., forthcoming). These findings raise broader questions about how higher education engages with CHRE and about its potential as a space for learning through and for rights. In this regard, Tornay-Bonvin (2025) provides complementary insights from the field of teacher education, showing that explicit andragogical training in children’s rights can foster transformative learning processes. Such training contributes to the reconfiguration of student teachers’ professional identities and supports the development of participatory and rights-respecting pedagogies.

Considering the gaps in the explicit and systematic integration of CHRE within initial teacher education across Europe greater attention needs to be paid to how existing higher education programmes address and enact CHRE. Grounded in recent theoretical developments within the CHRE research network, which conceptualise rights learning as an integrated system connecting aims, content, learners, educators, and rights-based educational processes (Moody et al., 2025), this paper discusses how university students mobilise these elements in their representations of rights-respecting schools. In line with work highlighting the elusive and multidimensional nature of CHRE content – spanning education about, through, and for rights (Quennerstedt et al., 2025) – this analysis examines how these dimensions are reflected in students’ projects. This paper asks, “how university students conceptualise, integrate, and transform children’s human rights education when designing child-friendly schools, and what it reveals about higher education as a space for learning through and for rights?” Addressing this question contributes to ongoing debates in CHRE scholarship that increasingly conceptualise rights learning as a systemic and relational process rather than a transmissive one.

The study has two main objectives. First, it examines how students mobilise and integrate key dimensions addressed in the course – children’s rights and education, creativity, access to education and alternative pedagogies, psychosocial and 21^st century skills – in their projects. Second, it explores the insights and perspectives that emerge beyond the formal course content, revealing how future professionals reinterpret and expand conceptions of children’s rights-respecting education. In doing so, the paper responds to calls more explicit and diversified uses of theory in educational children’s rights research beyond legal and policy framings (Gillett-Swan et al., 2023) and considers how higher education may operationalise such theoretical pluralism through project-based learning.

Education has been an enduring feature of international human rights law since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and is the only human right that is compulsory for children. Appearing in all major human rights treaties, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, education is multidimensional and a multiplier of rights – it enhances all other human rights when fully implemented. Nonetheless, there are gaps in understanding how implementation of children’s rights in schools should look and a distinct absence of empirical research on the human rights conflicts that arise, particularly from the perspectives of students themselves. The aim of this study was to scope possible human rights tensions and conflicts that characterise current children’s rights implementation in a secondary school in Scotland from the perspective of children and young people. The research question posed was: how do young people experience their rights in a Scottish secondary school?

Whilst international children’s rights law articulates minimum standards for children and their education environments, governance ‘denotes the concrete structures, processes, rules and practices that enact these human rights principles’ (Holzscheiter et al, 2019: 275). Children, however, are typically absent from mainstream theories of governance, resulting in a failure to understand children’s bespoke experiences and perspectives (Holzscheiter et al, 2019; Hinton, 2008). This might be because governance structures, procedures, rules and practices are traditionally the convictions of the (usually adult) holders of culture norms in an organisation. If an organisation’s governance procedures provide an insight into their culture, then the concept of governance is a useful theoretical lens for addressing not only the asymmetric power disparity that permeates educational relationships, but also the interplay between human rights principles (knowledge) and practice (experience), or what has been called the ‘implementation gap’ (Holzscheiter et al, 2019; Quennerstedt, 2013; Reynaert et al, 2012; Hinton, 2008).

Employing governance as a theoretical lens offers a more complex and nuanced account of power, drawing particular attention to the capacity of State parties to interact with non-state actors in the exercise of policy and decision-making, and the power of institutions and individuals in local contexts of children’s participation (Holzscheiter et al, 2019; Hinton, 2008). This paper examines the omission of children’s participation in human rights governance, and the implications for human rights culture, by applying De Búrca’s (2017) Experimentalist Governance Theory to children’s human rights. Inspired by Deweyan ideas of learning from experience, this approach is based in local actors’ tangible (as opposed to abstractly posed) experiences of human rights conflicts, using their diverse responses to generate novel, responsive solutions (Sabel, 2004; Sabel and Zeitlin, 2008, 2012).

The recognition and implementation of children’s rights in schools is a key issue in contemporary European education systems, in line with the United Nations Convention on Children’s rights (1989) and education policies aimed at student participation, inclusion, and well-being. While these principles are widely affirmed in normative and institutional frameworks, numerous studies highlight a persistent gap between proclaimed rights and the actual experiences of children in their everyday school life (Author 2, 2016; Quennerstedt, 2010; Reynaert et al., 2015).

Studies on children's rights in educational contexts have shown that rights-respecting school environments are associated with positive effects on well-being, school engagement, social relationships, and school climate (Covell et al., 2010; Howe & Covell, 2010; Sebba & Robinson, 2010). However, these studies also point to a lack of empirical tools for reliably and systematically measuring the effectiveness of children's rights from the perspective of the students themselves, particularly in primary school (Other & Author 2, 2020).

This communication aims to address this gap by presenting the development of a scale measuring children’s rights at school, as well as the initial results expected from its psychometric validation. The main objective is to propose an instrument for assessing children’s perceptions of the respect for their fundamental rights in mainstream schools, considering children as competent actors and legitimate informants of their own experiences (Author 2 et al., 2024).

Theoretically, this research lies at the intersection of studies on children's rights, developmental psychology, and educational sciences. It draws on a conception of children's rights as situated social practices that are inseparable from power relations and school norms (Freeman, 2010; Hanson, 2012; Author 2, 2016). It also draws on work on school climate, defined as a reflection of the experiences of members of the educational community, including rules, values, interpersonal relationships, and institutional practices (Cohen et al., 2009; Janosz et al., 1998; Lewno-Dumdie et al., 2020).

The scale developed consists of 15 items assessed on a five-point Likert scale and is organized around five theoretical dimensions: (1) respect and personal recognition, (2) freedom of expression and listening, (3) inclusion and sense of belonging, (4) protection from humiliation and unfair treatment, and (5) emotional security and adult kindness.

This approach is in line with European work calling for a move beyond a strictly normative conception of children's rights to analyze their effectiveness in ordinary educational contexts from the perspective of the children themselves (Author 2, 2016; Quennerstedt, 2010; Other and Author 2, 2020; Reynaert et al., 2015).

The structure of these dimensions is based on the work by Polonko and Lombardo (2005), who proposed a conceptualization of children's rights at school centered on daily interactions, and the effective recognition of children as rights holders in educational practices. These dimensions echo the concepts of dignity, equality, and empowerment identified as central to contemporary research on children's rights at school (Freeman, 2010; Author 2 & Other, 2021; Quennerstedt, 2010), as well as the relational and emotional dimensions of the school climate (Grazia & Molinari, 2021).

Beyond the Franco-Swiss context in which the tool was initially developed, this scale is part of a European research dynamic. Comparative studies have shown that, despite common legal frameworks, the implementation of children’s rights varies greatly across education systems and national school cultures (Quennerstedt, 2011; Reynaert et al., 2009). By proposing a tool designed to be validated in several languages and contexts, this research aims to contribute to the production of comparable data at the European level, which could inform both scientific research and educational policies on children’s rights and well-being at school.