Abstract
Thirty years ago, world leaders made a historic commitment to the world’s children by adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC marks a new way of looking upon children: children are not just objects who belong to their parents and for whom decisions are made. Children are not just training to become adults, they are human beings, citizens and, individuals with their own rights. The aim of this book is to use the 30th anniversary of the UNCRC as a reason to analyse “What do the children’s rights mean today?”. How are the goals of provision, protection and participation implemented? Are children’s voices heard, and do children now participate in their societies as actors and agents for change?
A wider purpose of this book is to elevate the obvious links between the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UNCRC. Almost all of today’s children will be adults by 2030, or very soon after. As a theoretical framework for performing this analysis, Davis’ theory about five dimensions of rights for early childhood education is used.
The authors in this book come from 14 countries and all regions of the world. They write about their own country through a lens of their own professional field and expertise, which for most of them is within Early Childhood Education (ECE). Thus, the contributions may serve as contemporary, complementary, and rich examples of early childhood. By comparing the lived rights of the child in various contexts, we want this book to be a source of knowledge and an inspiration to many child rights activists, students, and professionals.
This book presents the UNCRC from three different perspectives, policy, children’s perspectives, and education, which at the same time make up three parts in the book. In this introduction, we introduce the UNCRC and present the different chapters.
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Višnjić-Jevtić, A., Sadownik, A.R., Engdahl, I. (2021). Introducing Human Rights for Young Children. In: Višnjić-Jevtić, A., Sadownik, A.R., Engdahl, I. (eds) Young Children in the World and Their Rights. International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68241-5_1
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