The child’s participation in any legal matter involving him/her is crucial whether received directly or indirectly through a legal representative. The significance of the child’s views in legal matters is accepted internationally and is entrenched in South African law. This is the main feature of the present research. In Roman law the paterfamilias was the complete antithesis of the best interest of the child with his paternal power entirely serving his own interests. The best interests of the child progressively improved his/her participatory rights and the dominance of paternal authority in Roman, Germanic, and Frankish law eventually gave way to parental authority and assistance in Roman-Dutch law. This advanced the child’s participation in legal matters and under Roman-Dutch law, his/her right of participation included legal representation by way of a curator ad litem. The child’s best interests were consistently viewed from an adult’s perspective and resulted in an adult-centred assessment of his/her best interests. Statutory intervention increased the child’s participatory and representation rights, however, the tenor of these items of legislation remained parent-centred. The Appeal Court later dispelled any uncertainty regarding the paramountcy with respect to the best interests of the child. During the 1970s in South Africa, the emphasis began shifting from a parent-centred to a child-centred approach in litigation between parents in cases involving their children. An open-ended list of factors comprising the best interests of the child accentuated this shift. Courts were encouraged to apply the paramountcy rule in legal matters concerning children and to consider the views of children in determining their best interests. The new democratic constitutional dispensation in South Africa, followed by the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter, obligated South Africa to align children’s rights with international law and standards. The South African Law Reform Commission set out to investigate and to formulate a single comprehensive children’s statute. The resultant Children’s Act 38 of 2005 is the most important item of legislation for children in private law in South Africa. The Children’s Act provides for the widest possible form of child participation in legal matters involving the child. It revolutionises child participation requiring no lower age limit as a determining factor when allowing the child, able to form a view, to express that view. The child’s right to access a court and to be assisted in doing so further enhances his/her participatory right. Effective legal representation is the key in ensuring that children enjoy the fundamental right of participation equal to that of adults in legal matters involving children. Comparative research of child laws in Australia, Kenya, New Zealand and United Kingdom confirms that South Africa is well on the way in enhancing children’s participatory and legal representation rights in legal matters concerning them. This illustrates that only the child’s best interests should serve as a requirement for the legal representation of children in legal matters. Continued training is essential to ensure the implementation of the Children’s Act and requires a concerted effort from all role-players. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Private Law / unrestricted

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Denna studie har undersökt hur barn pratar om och beskriver begreppet delaktighet inom idrottsrörelsen, i syfte att klargöra barns perspektiv inom detta kunskapsområde. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av en kvalitativ ansats och baserades på tre gruppintervjuer med tolv unga idrottare i åldrarna 10–15 år. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien var delaktighetsteorier, dels utifrån ett statsvetenskapligt samt ett sociologiskt perspektiv, men också specifikt, teorier som rör barns delaktighet (children’s participation) där framförallt delaktighet utifrån Roger Harts (1992) "ladder of participation" har använts. Resultatet för studien visar att idrottande barns beskrivningar av begreppet delaktighet är omfångsrik och innefattar å ena sidan en varierad bild av beslutsprocessen, där beskrivningar av att våga och inte få välja utgör exempel på icke delaktighet medan komma överens, kompromissa, rösta, vara med och bestämma, få välja, bli tillfrågad, få förklaringar, ge feedback, ge förslag och önskemål samt säga vad man tycker utgör barns beskrivningar av delaktighet. Å andra sidan visar även resultatet att idrottande barns beskrivningar av delaktighet går utöver beskrivningar av själva beslutsprocessen och innefattar även ett socialt perspektiv, där känna sig utanför, vara utesluten, och som att man inte finns utgjorde beskrivningar av att inte vara delaktig, medans beskrivningar av att man är med i ett gäng, alla får vara med och att man upplever att man finns till samt blir sedd, lyftes fram som viktiga komponenter för att beskriva delaktighet. Resultatet ligger i linje med tidigare forskning som har indikerat att barn uppfattar begreppet delaktighet som något mer än bara vara en del av en beslutsprocess. Studiens forskningsbidrag är därmed dels en bekräftelse av tidigare antydningar av idrottande barns breda syn på delaktighet men framförallt vad denna breda syn består av, vilket till min kännedom inte har utforskats tidigare. Resultatet ska emellertid beaktas med försiktighet givet det begränsade urvalet för studien. / The aim of this study has been to investigate how children talk about and describe the concept of participation in the sports movement, thus illuminating a child’s perspective of this area, and providing a basis for future quantitative work. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach and was based on three group interviews with twelve young athletes aged 10–15 years. The theoretical starting point for the study was participatory theories, partly from a political science and a sociological perspective, but also specifically, theories concerning children's participation. The results of the study show that athletes’ descriptions of the concept of participation are comprehensive and include, on the one hand, a broad picture of the decision-making process, where descriptions of daring and not being able to choose are examples of non-participation, while agreeing, compromising, voting, participating and deciding, getting to choose, being asked, getting explanations, giving feedback, giving suggestions and wishes and saying what you think, constitute children’s descriptions of participation. On the other hand, the results also show that young athletes’ descriptions of participation go beyond the decision-making process itself and also include a social perspective, where feeling outside, excluded, or that you don’t exist, are descriptions of non-participation, whilst descriptions such as being a part of a group, everyone is included, that you feel that you exist and are seen, were highlighted as important components to describe participation. The results are in line with previous research which has indicated that children perceive the concept of participation as something more than just being part of a decision-making process. The study’s main contribution is therefore firstly a reinforcement of the indications of previous research of children’s broad view of participation and secondly, illuminating what this comprehensive view consists of, which to my knowledge hasn’t been explored before. Further research is however needed given the small sample in this study, in order to strengthen these findings.

This study investigates the everyday practices of young children acting in their social worlds within the context of the school playground. It employs an ethnographic ethnomethodological approach using conversation analysis. In the context of child participation rights advanced by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and childhood studies, the study considers children’s social worlds and their participation agendas. The participants of the study were a group of young children in a preparatory year setting in a Queensland school. These children, aged 4 to 6 years, were videorecorded as they participated in their day-to-day activities in the classroom and in the playground. Data collection took place over a period of three months, with a total of 26 hours of video data. Episodes of the video-recordings were shown to small groups of children and to the teacher to stimulate conversations about what they saw on the video. The conversations were audio-recorded. This method acknowledged the child’s standpoint and positioned children as active participants in accounting for their relationships with others. These accounts are discussed as interactionally built comments on past joint experiences and provided a starting place for analysis of the video-recorded interaction. Four data chapters are presented in this thesis. Each data chapter investigates a different topic of interaction. The topics include how children use “telling” as a tactical tool in the management of interactional trouble, how children use their “ideas” as possessables to gain ownership of a game and the interactional matters that follow, how children account for interactional matters and bid for ownership of “whose idea” for the game and finally, how a small group of girls orientated to a particular code of conduct when accounting for their actions in a pretend game of “school”. Four key themes emerged from the analysis. The first theme addresses two arenas of action operating in the social world of children, pretend and real: the “pretend”, as a player in a pretend game, and the “real”, as a classroom member. These two arenas are intertwined. Through inferences to explicit and implicit “codes of conduct”, moral obligations are invoked as children attempt to socially exclude one another, build alliances and enforce their own social positions. The second theme is the notion of shared history. This theme addresses the history that the children reconstructed, and acts as a thread that weaves through their interactions, with implications for present and future relationships. The third theme is around ownership. In a shared context, such as the playground, ownership is a highly contested issue. Children draw on resources such as rules, their ideas as possessables, and codes of behaviour as devices to construct particular social and moral orders around owners of the game. These themes have consequences for children’s participation in a social group. The fourth theme, methodological in nature, shows how the researcher was viewed as an outsider and novice and was used as a resource by the children. This theme is used to inform adult-child relationships. The study was situated within an interest in participation rights for children and perspectives of children as competent beings. Asking children to account for their participation in playground activities situates children as analysers of their own social worlds and offers adults further information for understanding how children themselves construct their social interactions. While reporting on the experiences of one group of children, this study opens up theoretical questions about children’s social orders and these influences on their everyday practices. This thesis uncovers how children both participate in, and shape, their everyday social worlds through talk and interaction. It investigates the consequences that taken-for-granted activities of “playing the game” have for their social participation in the wider culture of the classroom. Consideration of this significance may assist adults to better understand and appreciate the social worlds of young children in the school playground.