The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and describe the historical development and current state of children's rights protection under international law. In the first place this text provides an introduction to the issue of the status of children in society and the need for its increased protection. This issue is still actual even if international regulation provides children with complex protection. The ongoing problem is the level of compliance with such obligations, which varies in Member States considerably. The main text of this thesis consists of three main thematic blocks.First one is formed by an excursion into the history of international protection of children rights. This block outlines position of children, which is mirrored in the development of various instruments of international law. It describes a gradual shift from socially almost invisible group, which was not guaranteed any special rights to first general protection by universal human rights instruments and to actual peak of international protection of children rights, which is represented by comprehensive Convention on the Rights of the Child. The second thematic section is dedicated just to Convention on the Rights of the Child where considerable amount of space is devoted to this international treaty. This work deals with related...

PhD. thesis. University of the Witwatersrand, Wits School of Governance. 1st October 2015 / Two decades after South Africa’s transition to democracy, with a positive constitutional and legislative framework in place, a vast number of South African households continue to be subjected to serious inequalities and extreme poverty. The dual phenomenon of poverty and inequality are complex problems of such a magnitude that silo approaches and singular agency fixes are inadequate. South Africa has the potential to address such issues at a multi-actor multi-institutional level, involving both civil society organisations and government working together. This study investigates the manner in which various stakeholders come together to develop policy and implement strategies aimed at the alleviation of poverty, specifically focussing on childhood poverty and vulnerability. Using the policy network approach to illustrate the relationships that exist between actors, this study follows the policy process from formulation to implementation. The policy network approach is utilised as a lens through which the policy process is examined in two case studies — the succession planning and children’s act projects. These case studies share a common objective which is to equip service providers with the knowledge and skills to assist their clients in accessing their legal rights. Policy networks draw attention to the institutional arrangements needed for coordinating complex interactions between various actors involved in the policy process, with a specific interest on state-civil society relationships of policy cooperation. Hence, the main focus of the research is to ascertain the networking relationships that develop between government and civil society organisations and to explore the potential that policy networks offer in the future pursuit of social justice and children’s rights. / MB2016

O presente trabalho baseia-se no levantamento histórico sobre a proteção dos direitos humanos da criança e do adolescente, na análise de referências teóricas sobre comunidades epistêmicas e movimentos sociais, e em entrevistas com pessoas envolvidas na criação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA) - Lei Federal n.º 8.069/90. Identifica cinco comunidades epistêmicas (internacional, estatal, militante, religiosa e jurídica), presentes no Movimento de Defesa dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente dos anos 80. Ao identificar essas comunidades, cujas influências técnicas e políticas foram essenciais para a elaboração coletiva do ECA, procuramos evidenciar teorias que geraram consenso à época e orientaram a formulação da norma jurídica. As duas principais são: Teologia da Libertação e Pedagogia do Oprimido. O reconhecimento dessas teorias fundantes pode inspirar o desenvolvimento de indicadores que auxiliariam na avaliação da implementação do Estatuto em trabalhos futuros. A pesquisa, para os fins desta dissertação, é descritiva e documental, com dimensão histórica e processo interdisciplinar. Situa-se no campo das ciências sociais aplicadas, e baseia-se em entrevistas semiestruturadas, documentação oficial e textos científicos com suporte bibliográfico, que reúnem trabalhos de natureza jurídica, política, sociológica, teológica e filosófica / The present work is based on a historical survey of the protection of the human rights of children and adolescents (both in Brazil and across the world), an analysis of theoretical references on epistemic communities and social movements, and interviews with people involved in the formulation of the Child and Adolescent Statute (CAS) - Federal Law n.º 8.069/90. It identifies five epistemic communities (international; state; militant; religious; legal) presents in the Social Movement to Defend the Rights of Children and Adolescents in the 1980s. In identifying these communities, whose technical and political influences contributed to the formulation of the CAS, we can highlight which scientific theories generated consensus at the time and founded the legal norm, such as Liberation Theology and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The principles of those theories also reveal indicators for evaluating the implementation of the Statute in future work. The research carried out for the purposes of this dissertation is descriptive and documentary with historical dimension and interdisciplinary process. It is situated in the field of applied social sciences, and is based on semi-structured interviews, official documentation and scientific texts with bibliographic support, which bring together works of a juridical, political, sociological, theological and philosophical nature

O presente trabalho baseia-se no levantamento histórico sobre a proteção dos direitos humanos da criança e do adolescente, na análise de referências teóricas sobre comunidades epistêmicas e movimentos sociais, e em entrevistas com pessoas envolvidas na criação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA) - Lei Federal n.º 8.069/90. Identifica cinco comunidades epistêmicas (internacional, estatal, militante, religiosa e jurídica), presentes no Movimento de Defesa dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente dos anos 80. Ao identificar essas comunidades, cujas influências técnicas e políticas foram essenciais para a elaboração coletiva do ECA, procuramos evidenciar teorias que geraram consenso à época e orientaram a formulação da norma jurídica. As duas principais são: Teologia da Libertação e Pedagogia do Oprimido. O reconhecimento dessas teorias fundantes pode inspirar o desenvolvimento de indicadores que auxiliariam na avaliação da implementação do Estatuto em trabalhos futuros. A pesquisa, para os fins desta dissertação, é descritiva e documental, com dimensão histórica e processo interdisciplinar. Situa-se no campo das ciências sociais aplicadas, e baseia-se em entrevistas semiestruturadas, documentação oficial e textos científicos com suporte bibliográfico, que reúnem trabalhos de natureza jurídica, política, sociológica, teológica e filosófica / The present work is based on a historical survey of the protection of the human rights of children and adolescents (both in Brazil and across the world), an analysis of theoretical references on epistemic communities and social movements, and interviews with people involved in the formulation of the Child and Adolescent Statute (CAS) - Federal Law n.º 8.069/90. It identifies five epistemic communities (international; state; militant; religious; legal) presents in the Social Movement to Defend the Rights of Children and Adolescents in the 1980s. In identifying these communities, whose technical and political influences contributed to the formulation of the CAS, we can highlight which scientific theories generated consensus at the time and founded the legal norm, such as Liberation Theology and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The principles of those theories also reveal indicators for evaluating the implementation of the Statute in future work. The research carried out for the purposes of this dissertation is descriptive and documentary with historical dimension and interdisciplinary process. It is situated in the field of applied social sciences, and is based on semi-structured interviews, official documentation and scientific texts with bibliographic support, which bring together works of a juridical, political, sociological, theological and philosophical nature

This study is written within the framework of the theme of democracy and children's rights. The aim of the study is to contribute knowledge of preschool teachers’ perceptions of children's influence in relation to the pedagogical doc-umentation in preschool. The questions in this study intend to answer how pre-school teachers describe and create opportunities for children's influence in relation to pedagogical documentation and what challenges and opportunities they experience in this work. The methodology used in the study is semistruc-tured interviews of preschool teachers and to process the data in this study, a phenomenographic analysis model is used. The theoretical tool used in the analysis is Shiers (2001) participatory model. A basic principle of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF Sverige, 2009) is the right to be heard and to have their views taken into ac-count. The use of pedagogical documentation in preschool activities can be seen as a way to make children's voices heard, but are children beeing given the opportunity to influence what is documented about them and how? The study's results and analysis show that the interviewed preschool teachers define children's influence in relation to pedagogical documentation in a similar way, but that the children are given different opportunities for influence depending on context. / Denna studie skrivs inom ramen för temat demokrati och barns rättigheter. Studiens syfte är att bidra med kunskap om förskollärares uppfattningar om barns inflytande i relation till förskolans pedagogiska dokumentation. Frågeställningarna i studien ämnar ge svar på hur förskollärare beskriver och skapar möjligheter för barns inflytande i relation till pedagogisk dokumentation samt vilka utmaningar och möjligheter de upplever i detta arbete. Den metod som används i studien är semistrukturerade intervjuer av förskollärare och för att bearbeta studiens data används en fenomenografisk analysmodell. Det teoretiska analysverktyg som används är Shiers (2001) delaktighetsmodell. En grundprincip i FN:s konvention om barnets rättigheter (UNICEF Sverige, 2009) är rätten att bli hörd och få sina åsikter tagna i beaktande. Användandet av pedagogisk dokumentation i förskolans verksamhet kan ses som ett sätt att göra barns röster hörda, men ges barn möjlighet att påverka vad som dokumenteras om dem och hur? Studiens resultat och analys visar att de intervjuade förskollärarna definierar barns inflytande i relation till pedagogisk dokumentation på liknande sätt, men att barnen ges olika möjligheter till inflytande beroende på kontext.

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The socio-emotional well-being of maltreated children is a key priority for practitioners and policy-makers alike; yet not enough is known about the developmental mechanisms that might link children's parenting experiences with their psychosocial adjustment. Previous research suggests that parental abuse and neglect can have adverse effects on children's peer relationships and self-perceptions. Emerging theoretical and empirical work suggests that children's social understanding and empathy could play a key role as mediators of these effects, but we have little knowledge about the differentiated pathways that might be uncovered by adopting a multidimensional conceptualisation of parenting experiences, social understanding and empathy, and peer reputations and self-perceptions. This thesis includes five papers reporting on a programme of empirical research conducted in order to address this gap in knowledge. The first, a meta-analysis and systematic review, revealed a complex and differentiated profile of social understanding among maltreated children. The second paper reports on a thematic analysis of a focus group and detailed semi-structured individual interviews with foster carers. In line with our theoretical model, carers readily identified children's difficulties with social understanding and empathy as relevant explanations for their socio-emotional problems. The third paper presents a new multidimensional self-report measure of empathy in children, demonstrating differentiated connections with socio-emotional functioning. The fourth paper presents comparisons between maltreated children in foster care and their classmates at school (aged 7-11 years), using measures that assess their peer reputations, self-perceptions, social understanding and empathy. Results indicate both direct links from maltreatment status to self-perceptions, as well as indirect links via children's theory of mind skills, their prosocial responses to others' emotional states and their behavioural reputations. The final paper delves deeper into the variations within the non-maltreated sample, uncovering links between specific features of the children's parenting experiences and their behavioural reputations, peer status and self-perceptions, via emotion understanding and empathic responses. Overall, the findings from this programme of research highlight the interplay of parenting experiences and socio-emotional competence in understanding school-aged children's psychosocial functioning. The results carry implications for further research as well as for applied work to support maltreated children and the adults who work with and care for them.

This thesis examined the influence of parents' gendered attitudes and behaviours on three different aspects of development in middle childhood and early adolescence through three papers. The first paper explored the longitudinal influence of parents' gender-role attitudes and division of household responsibilities on children's gender development. Results showed that parents' gender-role attitudes and division of household responsibilities were predictive of children's gendered personality traits, gender-role attitudes and feminine preferences for activities, but not their masculine preferences for activities. The second paper investigated the influence of parents' gender-role attitudes and division of household responsibilities on children's ability self-concepts. Parents' gendered attitudes and behaviours were not predictive of children's ability self-concepts. However, children's own gendered attitudes and behaviours were associated with these self-concepts. Children's higher feminine preferences predicted lower maths and sports self-concepts and higher English self-concepts. In addition, higher masculine preferences and personality traits predicted higher sports self-concepts. Finally, the third paper explored the influences of parents' gender-role attitudes and division of household responsibilities on sibling relationship quality, and marriage and parenting as mediators of this association, which is unique to the literature. Families with more egalitarian division of household responsibilities had more positive and less negative sibling relationships than traditional families. Using structural equation modelling, parenting, but not marriage was found to act as a mediator. Papers 1 and 2 used a longitudinal sample of 106 families with two siblings and their parents from the South East of England. Paper 3 used just the first wave of data from this study which included 124 families. This research highlights the importance of taking a family systems approach to examining child development, and emphasises the need to explore the father-child and sibling relationships in addition to the prevalent focus on mother-child relationships. In addition, multiple dimensions of gender were explored for parents and children rather than just examining sex differences. This added extra depth to the analysis and aided in understanding the complexity of these associations. The diverse nature of influences of parents' gendered attitudes and behaviours on these three areas allows comparisons to be made that contribute to the literature on parental influences and our understanding of child development in middle childhood and early adolescence.

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