Suchergebnisse

This article investigates interpretations of sound research ethics in social science research involving children as framed through regulation. Coinciding with an emergent significance being given to research that involves children, debate has developed regarding whether particular ethical considerations are warranted in this type of research. We overlay the examination of regulation documents in Sweden and Australia with an interpretative lens drawn from these regulations that has the potential to position children as competent social actors in the research process. We then argue that there is possibility for ethical procedures to be viewed not only as risk management but also as beneficial research practice to stimulate continuing debate about how to work ethically in social science research when children are participants.

From political science we have learnt the dynamics of 'essentially contested concepts' such as democracy, freedom and equality. Within the politics of education, too, we see a similar use of concepts with positive meanings, but given different interpretations by different social forces seeking to achieve distinct policies. In Sweden, the concept of likvärdighet – which literally can be understood as meaning 'equal worth', with reference to any phenomena, and which can be translated as both equivalence and equity – has played this specific dynamic role in educational politics during the last 20 years. The results of a three-year research project presented here deal with the performative use of this specific concept.[1] Why this study of the concept of equivalence? We want to show how a concept with positive characteristics – nobody wants to be against equivalence – has come to be used in an educational policy conflict and has been given different interpretations by different social forces, interpretations which have been seen as expressions of the 'right' educational policy. By focusing on one specific concept, that of equivalence, we want to show how language, the expression of words and concepts such as equivalence, is communicated and used as a weapon in educational policy. [1] The project has been financed by the committe for educational sciences within the Swedish research council. The final report from the project is planned to be produced in 2007 and will be published in Swedish. The final report will be edited by Tomas Englund and Ann Quennerstedt. Other contributors in this final report are, the co-workers of the project Guadalupe Francia, Lazaro Moreno Herrera, Maria Olsson and Ninni Wahlström. A list of all publications from the project are to be found on the homepage for Tomas Englund, Örebro university. ; Contribution to NERA 2007 Network: Curriculum research ; What about equvalence? financed by the Swedish research council

That the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) encompasses contradictions is known. Despite this knowledge, attention to conflicting aspects within the convention is limited, and instead, the assumption that the convention represents an international consensus on the meaning of children's human rights seems to be widespread in policy and academic work. Furthermore, the available literature within the field of children's rights is largely silent regarding precise and elaborated knowledge about the inherent contradictions within the UNCRC. This paper expands upon and specifies the knowledge about consensus and inconsistencies within the convention. Through an in-depth study of the drafting process of the UNCRC, the paper identifies and displays both contradictions within the convention, and ways in which the text of the convention can be seen to express consensus. The analysis shows how a certain consensus was produced for respectively civil and political rights, and socio-economic rights, but that different and inconsistent children's rights logics underlay the formation of these respective consensus-formations. ; Funding Agencies: Örebro University University of Brighton University of Stirling