Skip to the main content

Review article

What the question of the relationship between children’s needs and children’s rights means for pedagogy

Petra Polić ; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci Odsjek za pedagogiju


Full text: croatian pdf 252 Kb

page 149-160

downloads: 956

cite

Full text: english pdf 115 Kb

page 161-161

downloads: 153

cite

Full text: german pdf 115 Kb

page 162-162

downloads: 134

cite


Abstract

Te paper focuses on the relationship between children’s needs and children’s rights seen from a pedagogical perspective, and aims to examine what a pedagogical approach consists of, and why it should be discussed. Te starting point is provided by two discourses on children that take different approaches to understanding children’s welfare and the best interest of the child – the children’s needs discourse and the children’s rights discourse – both present in contemporary psychology and sociology of childhood. Te main idea argued in the paper is that from a pedagogical perspective it is plausible to see the relationship between needs and rights (between passivity and activity, protection and participation) through the integration of both discourses on children, as opposed to particularistic approaches focusing on either rights or needs. Te paper describes the children’s needs and children’s rights discourses, discusses their status in contemporary science and in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and lists potential criticisms. Afer asserting the predominantly particularistic nature of both discourses, a pedagogical approach to the relationship between needs and rights is analysed. It is asserted that such an approach implies defning the key concepts – needs and rights – from the pedagogical perspective, and that it may be plausibly based on an integration of the two discourses. A theoretical foundation for the discourses’ integration is found in several postulates of phenomenological pedagogy. Finally, the attempt to position the science of pedagogy on this issue can contribute to developing the pedagogical approach to other phenomena in childhood research, resulting in a tangible contribution to understanding childhood.

Keywords

children’s needs; children’s rights; the relationship between protection and participation; childhood; pedagogy of childhood; pedagogical perspective

Hrčak ID:

178846

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/178846

Publication date:

6.11.2015.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

Visits: 2.990 *