Child Rights Education - Building Capabilities and Empowerment Through Social Constructivism

Abstract

Children have the right to a voice, to education and to education about their rights, as outlined in Article 12 and Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Child rights-based education can support children to be empowered with critical agency and exposed to connection to the wider world, better equipping them to become young global citizens and act in ways that demonstrate empathy and commitment to diversity, dignity, and equality. To obtain this goal, education systems must be aligned to foster these attributes and empower children to develop and exercise the capabilities that will best serve them in childhood as well as adulthood. This paper considers how we can support the empowerment and capabilities development of children through child rights-focused education using an integrated framework of empowerment, capabilities (Sen, 1999), and social constructivist (Vgotsky, 1978) education. Building on the foundations laid in the development and evolution of children’s rights, setting out the theoretical underpinnings and drawing on a case study of a rights-based education project, this paper will consider how rights-based education can be feasible and beneficial.