"They say we're a rights-respecting school but nobody knows what that really means" : children's rights implementation in a Scottish secondary school

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Hanna, Amy (2026) "They say we're a rights-respecting school but nobody knows what that really means" : children's rights implementation in a Scottish secondary school. British Educational Research Journal. ISSN 0141-1926 (https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.70172)

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Abstract

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. This article presents findings from a qualitative study examining how young people understand and experience their rights in a Scottish secondary school. The findings suggest a disconnect between the rights rhetoric that permeates many schools in Scotland and students' lived experience and understanding of their rights in the school environment. I conclude that whilst children's rights implementation focuses largely on students' knowledge about their rights, more attention should be paid to the culture change required for full implementation of children's rights in schools. To do so, I offer the beginnings of a ‘pedagogy for rights’ and a preliminary infrastructure for how this might be achieved.

ORCID iDs

Hanna, Amy ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1101-5211;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)