ABSTRACT
In recent years, developmental scientists have increasingly focused their attention on the ways in which all levels of social context can be considered from a perspective on children’s rights (Ruck, Keating, Saewyc, Earls & Ben-Arieh, 2016; and multiple contributions to this Handbook of Children’s Rights). This interface between a focus on children’s rights and a developmental science perspective has been and is likely to continue to be mutually beneficial, in that it not only sharpens our understanding of children’s capacities with respect to specific domains of understanding (Ruck, Abramovitch & Keating, 1998; Ruck, Keating, Abramovitch & Koegl, 2016; Sherrod, 2008), but also provides an approach to implementation of children’s rights that is well informed by developmental science. Both of these-more developmental science research on the relevant areas and greater attention to how this can shape an agenda for children’s rights-serve to promote support for greater attention to those rights.
