ERIC Number: EJ1213266
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2000-4508
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Childhood, Complexity Orientation, and Children's Rights: Enlarging the Space of the Possible?
I'Anson, John
Education Inquiry, v2 n3 p373-384 2011
This paper begins by considering some of the performative dilemmas associated with the enactment of children's rights by adults. In particular, it is argued that the mobilisation of children's rights often tends to involve multiple forms of "complexity reduction" (Osberg and Biesta, 2010), the net effect of which is to limit children's expressive powers and attenuate rights-based approaches. A focus of this paper is the specific understanding of "childhood" that necessarily accompanies any appeal to rights as specifically an appeal to "children's rights, as distinct from, for example, adults' rights, or rights as such. In other words, some im"age of childhood will necessarily and variously haunt, and inform, mobilisations of children's rights discourse by adults. Three scenarios, drawn from a recently completed research project, "Moving Image Literacies", are used to think through some of the material, relational and spatial effects of different mobilisations of childhood. The paper argues that it is necessary to attend to both the orientation to complexity that informs a given approach, together with the characterisation of childhood that is mobilised, if spaces are to be created that enlarge the space of the possible.
Descriptors: Childrens Rights, Films, Information Technology, Educational Environment, Classroom Environment, Research Projects, Vignettes, Secondary School Teachers, Teacher Attitudes, Video Technology, Telecommunications, Handheld Devices, Risk, Poverty Areas, Elementary School Students, Teacher Student Relationship, Family Environment, Personal Autonomy, Children, Foreign Countries, Treaties, International Law, Parent Child Relationship
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Secondary Education; Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A