Interpreting children's rights education: three perspectives and three roles for teachers

In this article I argue that the world-view adopted by Children’s Rights Education (CRE) advocates influences the form of education they present. In the first part of the article I discuss three perspectives: (1) the legalistic perspective, which sees CRE as a matter of technical implementation; (2) the reformist-hermeneutic perspective, which focuses on the interpretation and elaboration of core children’s rights texts; and (3) the radical view, which sees CRE as part of a broader political struggle for education. In the second part I consider the implications of each of these perspectives for teachers and argue that only the latter tradition positions teachers as agents of change, whilst the others reduce teacher agency. The article argues that the first two perspectives are unlikely to achieve radical change for children, and that CRE advocates must engage more overtly with the politically contested nature of education