Children, classrooms and challenging behaviour: do the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few?

ABSTRACT

Schools present a unique context for the generation and resolution of conflicts of human rights. While the conflicts that arise are many and various, a default response appears to be the prioritisation of the rights of the majority. Hence the rights of the many then trump the rights of the few. However, the intersection of multiple stakeholders, and multiple interests and rights, requires decision-makers to identify the rights at stake for all and address conflicts in ways that are both principled and transparent. Drawing on an established body of human rights theory, and using the example of children whose behaviour is causing disruption as a case, this paper offers a rights-informed approach to consider responses to some of the tensions and conflicts that can arise between students in schools. While acknowledging that (a) the resolution of these disputes will turn on individual facts and contexts and rarely be clear-cut and (b) that human rights theory and law on this issue is also complex and contested, we suggest that a rights-informed response should, and would usefully, be applied in situations when the interests of one child appear to conflict with the interests of others in the context of schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights
• school
• rights conflict
• student behaviour
• decision-making
• education rights

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The UNCRPD includes for children a right to an inclusive education (United Nations, 2016).

2. The right to inclusive (rather than segregated or integrated) education is a right afforded to the child, not the parent (United Nations, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jenna K. Gillett-Swan

Jenna K. Gillett-Swan is an Associate Professor and researcher in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at the Queensland University of Technology (Australia). Her research has a social justice orientation that seeks to build and enable individual capacity and wellbeing, while also investigating some of the rights-based complexities and tensions in schools and education systems. Much of her research focuses on intersections between rights, education, wellbeing, voice, inclusion, and participation. She also specialises in child-centred participatory qualitative methods, including student-led research inquiry. More recently, her research work has focussed on rights implications for school improvement agendas and bringing different school stakeholders together to foster and support authentic collaborative partnerships that place students at the centre. A/Prof Gillett-Swan is the co-leader of the ‘Voice and Wellbeing’ research program within the Centre for Inclusive Education, and is also a researcher in the Centre for Justice.

Laura Lundy

Laura Lundy is Co-Director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and a Professor of Education Law and Children’s Rights in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University, Belfast. She is co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Children’s Rights. Her expertise is in law and human rights with a particular focus on children’s right to participate in decision-making and education rights. Her 2007 paper in the British Educational Research Journal, ‘'Voice’ is not enough’ is one of the most highly cited academic papers in BERJ and on children’s rights ever. The model of children’s participation it proposes (based on four key concepts - Space, Voice, Audience and Influence) is used extensively in scholarship and practice. The ‘Lundy model’ has been adopted by numerous national governments and public bodies as well as international organisations including the European Commission, World Health Organisation, UNICEF and World Vision.