Young children's enactments of human rights in early childhood education

The purpose of this study is to seek knowledge about how human rights become part of and affect young children's everyday practices in early childhood education, and how children aged between 1 and 3 years enact human rights in early childhood education. The ambition is to represent the children's perspectives, and therefore focus is on the children and their actions.

Overall, the results show that children often enact three types of human rights in preschool: (1) the right to ownership, (2) the right to have influence, and (3) the right to equal treatment and equal value. These three types of human rights were selected by the author. According to the author, the children enact the three rights in different ways which also vary depending on how confidently they take initiative as well as communicate and assert their will.

The study shows that ownership is an ever present and complex issue in preschool, and that the right to ownership is complicated by the fact that most things in preschool belong to the preschool and not one single person. The children must therefore relate to the complexity of being temporary owners of the preschool's things, and they work hard on understanding the complex principles behind ownership and on how to enact ownership in preschool. The children demand temporary ownership of toys, places and various objects, such as cushions. The most typical interactions regarding the right to ownership are (1) becoming the temporary owner of something that does not belong to the child, and (2) maintaining the ownership of something of which the child is the temporary owner. The author finds that there are differences between the children in the way in which they interact with regard to ownership, and how often they do this. The children's enactment of ownership is often insecure, and their actions are often formed by a combination of the five following positions: (1) ownership by taking a thing that no one else is using, (2) ownership by taking a thing from others, (3) claim ownership in a loud and physical manner, if necessary, (4) waive ownership without expressing unwillingness when things are taken from you, and (5) being attentive to others' ownership.

The results show that the right to have influence, i.e. the right to be heard and taken into consideration, is also very apparent in young preschool children. Most children's enactment of the right to have influence is characterised by determination and by the children taking action to be heard and included. Here too, the author finds that the children differ in the way in which they enact their rights. Many of the children act with confidence to obtain influence in a given situation, whereas others are more reserved: They might take initiative and communicate their will, but their signals are insecure and weak, and are therefore not always captured by the teachers.

The study shows that the children's interactions with others in the preschool involve situations where questions about equal treatment and equal value emerge. A phenomenon in preschool which, according to the author is closely linked to equal value, is turn-taking situations, where certain ground rules have to be followed if several children want to do the same thing. The author finds that the ground rule for turn-taking often appears in specific parts of the preschool, such as by the swings, and that the children react to norms for equal value in different ways. According to the author, the children enact the right to equal treatment and equal value on the basis of positions that (1) acknowledge the child's own value, (2) acknowledge the value of others, and (3) favour the child's own value.

The empirical foundation of the study consists of observations of a total of 18 children aged between 1 and 3 years. Observations were carried out in one preschool group over three weeks. A total of 60 hours of observations were carried out, focussing on situations and interactions in which the children's actions could be viewed as enactments of human rights. The author observed different everyday situations, such as free play, meals, adult-initiated activities and outdoor activities. The author alternated between passive observation without interacting with the children and active observation where the author interacted with the children, for example by taking part in a game or by helping the children. The data material was analysed based on human rights theories and theories of childhood sociology.

Quennerstedt, A. (2016). Young children's enactments of human rights in early childhood education. International Journal of Early Years Education 24(1), 5-18.