August 19 to 31, 2024. Online.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: MAY 1, 2024.
Over the past 100 years, the framework of children's rights has gained an important place not only in policy and practice, but also in academia. While the study of children’s rights in academia is varied in terms of discipline, geographical context and focus, most studies adopt a top-down perspective to children’s rights discourses, which takes as its starting point the assumption that children’s rights are objective standards that now need to be implemented in policy or practice in diverse contexts.
That there may be conflicting understandings and foundations of children’s rights is not a consideration that is given much attention. Consequently, what is lacking in the dominant children’s rights discourse, since its emergence as a global discourse in the early years of the 20th century, is a critical perspective. While there may be different interpretations of a critical perspective, Vandenhole and colleagues (2015) have defined it as an alternative stance vis-à-vis dominant top-down paradigms. Specifically, this alternative framing adopts a more ‘contextual orientation’ of children’s rights which foregrounds a much more bottom-up approach. Given that almost 100 years after the 1924 Declaration on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the League of Nations, the realisation of children’s rights remains out of reach for many children around the world regardless of whether they are located in the Global North or the Global South, it is vital that such alternative framings are better understood and engaged with in both academic and policy/practice research.
To this end, the Critical Children’s Rights Network, a group of childhood studies and children’s rights studies scholars based in diverse contexts, have come together to collaborate and offer a free two-week Critical Children’s Rights Masterclass which seeks to unpack the concept of critical children’s rights from diverse disciplinary perspectives and drawing on case studies from contexts in both the Global South and the Global North. It is hoped that this proceeds to shape the future thinking of emerging scholars who are exploring their approach and position to the study of children’s rights.
DETAILS:
Dates: 19th -31st August 2024
Venue: Online (Zoom)
Order of Sessions:
· Monday 19th August (1-4pm UK/BST) –Synchronous – Introductions; Introduction to Critical Children’s Rights
· Tuesday 20th August – Asynchronous work
· Wednesday 21st August (1-3.30pm UK/BST) -Synchronous -Living Rights
· Thursday 22nd August – Asynchronous work
· Friday 23rd August (1-3.30pm UK/BST) – Synchronous -Post-colonial and decolonial childhoods and children’s rights
· Monday 26th August -Asynchronous work
· Tuesday 27th August (1-3.30pm UK/BST) - Political philosophy and children’s rights
· Wednesday 28th August (1pm-3.30pm UK/BST) – Individual meetings between participants and course instructors.
· Thursday 29th August (1-3.30pm UK/BST) -Student presentations
· Friday 30th August (1-3.30pm UK/BST) -Student presentations
Number of Spaces Available: 12
Eligibility:
Be enrolled in any year of PhD study;
Working on any aspect of childhoods and children’s rights (not necessarily from a critical perspective);
Working in any geographical location;
Adopting a childhood studies approach in your PhD project;
Able to attend all sessions and be prepared to make a brief presentations about your work.
Cost: None
Language of Communication: English
Instructors:
· Dr. Sarada Balagopalan (Rutgers University, USA)
· Dr. Nico Brando (The University of Liverpool, UK)
· Professor Karl Hanson (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
· Dr. Jonathan Josefsson (Linköping University, Sweden)
· Professor Valeria Llobet (Universidad de San Martín, Argentina)
· Professor Lucia Rabello de Castro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
· Dr. Didier Reynaert (HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Belgium)
· Dr. Afua Twum-Danso Imoh (The University of Bristol, UK)
· Professor John Wall (Rutgers University, USA)
More information on the instructors here.
Application Process: See Application Form to download below.
Deadline for applications: May 1, 2024.
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Queries should be sent to this email address.