Adolescents’ Notions About Children’s Rights

Introduction. The studies on children's rights actualize the unity of the external and internal. The external means social environment which interacts with the subject. The internal implies the subject's inner reality, ensuring his/her self-realization, autonomy, and freedom. The paper (a) describes the interrelationship between the problems in studying children's rights and the issues of child welfare and education in the field of human/children's rights, (b) concentrates on methods for studying notions about children's rights, (c) considers the principles of children's participation in the study of their rights, (d) presents diagnostic tools, and (e) provides the results of an empirical study on notions about children's rights among adolescents aged 10–15 years. Methods. The study employed the Rapid Survey on Notions About Children's Rights which followed the principles and logic of (a) the Flash Eurobarometer: The Rights of the Child and (b) the Children‘s Report on Child Rights by UNICEF. Results. The study revealed characteristics and age differences in notions about children's rights among adolescents. Adolescents aged 14–15 years were characterized by (a) greater awareness of the rights of the child, (b) comprehension of their importance and impossibility of restriction, and (c) preference of sources of information on children's rights. Discussion. The present study is the first on age differences in notions about children's rights, which introduces a new diagnostic tool—namely, the Rapid Survey on Notions About Children's Rights. The results of the empirical study on notions about children's rights among adolescents can be readily used in developing programs of adolescents' psychological education in the field of children's rights. The findings have great potential in educational psychologists' professional activities.