Children’s rights awareness: Fostering a democratic platform for current citizens of change

Abstract

The goal for this research study was to learn how elementary educators create opportunities for their students to enact agency. Furthermore, I also wanted to learn what outcomes they observed from these opportunities having on students’ understandings of democratic citizenship education. The main research question guiding this investigation was the following: How does a sample of elementary educators create opportunities for students to enact civic agency and what outcomes do they observe from their students? The study was conducted using a qualitative research method which included a review of the existing literature that is pertinent to the research purpose and questions of the study, as well as a set of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 2 educators. The findings of this study highlighted that meaningful implementation of civic agency is contingent upon students being knowledgeable about their rights and capacities as current citizens of change. Moreover, educators who utilize their own voice and take on the role of advocate for children’s rights and purposeful youth civic literacy opportunities indeed encourages students to become intrinsically motivated to engage in critical dialogue and enact their civic agency in a peaceful manner. As a result of these findings, it is imperative that all educators–school board officials, researchers, educational professionals, parents, and non-profit youth-centered organization members–educate themselves on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to not only be cognisant of their rights, but to also meaningfully bring about awareness via purposeful youth-centered civic engagement opportunities.