Abstract
A child’s right to participate in decisions which affect their life is advanced and protected by Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This right applies not only to decisions regarding individual children, but also collectively to decisions affecting children as whole, and to particular groups of children. This thesis examines how children’s collective participation rights have been addressed and upheld in the context of government policy development and legislative reform processes in Aotearoa, with a particular focus on four large-scale child participatory research projects undertaken by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner during the period 2018-2021.
This four-year period was a unique time for children’s collective participation in research and policy-making initiatives which had a significant impact on policy developments in the child and youth wellbeing, education, and care and protection contexts. This thesis analyses how children’s collective participation rights were given effect in four research projects involving the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. These are:
- Education Matters to Me, a 2018 project focused on children and young people’s experiences of the education system, which engaged in person with 144 children and young people (and a further 1,534 through online surveys).
- What Makes a Good Life?, a 2019 project focused on children and young people’s views on wellbeing, which engaged in person with 423 children and young people (and a further 5,631 via online surveys).
- Te Kuku o Te Manawa, a 2020 project focused on the removal of newborn Māori babies from their whānau, which engaged in person with 100 people, most of whom were the whānau of those newborn babies (implications of this are discussed).
- Our Kind of School, a 2021 project on safe and inclusive school environments, which engaged in person with 350 people (comprised of children and young people, whānau, staff and members of the wider community).
A case study method is used to analyse the four projects through an analytical framework created for the purposes of this research. This analytical framework draws on two existing frameworks: the Lundy Model (a globally-recognised model relating to implementation of Article 12 of the UNCRC through the four elements of space, voice, audience and influence), and Pōwhiri Poutama (a kaupapa Māori framework based on the tikanga of pōwhiri, a traditional Māori practice associated with welcoming visitors onto a marae).
The extent to which children’s collective participation rights were upheld in the four projects is examined through the analytical framework. Key themes which emerged through the research included the importance of rights-based approaches to children’s participation, the influence of capacity-building on participation, the value of relational approaches and the central role of Tikanga Māori and te Tiriti o Waitangi in enabling culturally-appropriate participation practices in Aotearoa. These themes, and their implications, are discussed.
The thesis concludes with recommendations about how children’s collective participation rights can be more consistently upheld in Aotearoa and internationally in the future. These pay particular attention to the issue of children’s rights in light of tikanga Māori and te Tiriti o Waitangi, both of which must be central to the implementation of children’s rights in research and policy development in Aotearoa. The analytical framework constructed for this thesis could also be beneficial going forward, not just to evaluate participatory practices, but also to ensure that children’s collective participation rights are upheld more consistently, and more meaningfully, in domestic and international policy and law-reform contexts.