Adolescents'' Notions of Children''s Rights
Introduction. Research on children's rights is helping unify the external social environment with which the subject interacts and the subject's internal reality, which is a foundation for self-realization, autonomy, and freedom. This paper: (a) describes the interrelationships among 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 of children's rights; (c) considers the principles of children's participation in the study of their rights; (d) presents relevant diagnostic tools; and (e) reports the results of an empirical study on notions of children's rights among adolescents aged 10-15 years. Methods. The study employed the Rapid Survey on Notions of Children's Rights which followed the principles and logic of the Flash Eurobarometer: The Rights of the Child and the Children's Report on Child Rights and Children's Issues by UNICEF. Results. The study discovered age-related differences in notions of children's rights among adolescents. Adolescents aged 14-15 years were characterized by greater awareness of the rights of the child than that of their 10-11-year-old counterparts. This difference was based on higher levels of comprehension of children's rights, the awareness of their importance and the impossibility of their restriction, and on preferences for the sources of information on children's rights. Discussion. The newly developed diagnostic tool, the Rapid Survey on Notions About Children's Rights, was used to collect data on age differences in notions about children's rights. The study results can be readily used in developing programs for the psychological education of adolescents in the field of children's rights. This line of research has great potential for the professional activities of educational psychologist.