ABSTRACT
Participation rights are reflected in Articles 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989), and chapters in this section emphasize principles reflected in Articles 12 and 13. Article 12 focuses on children’s right to express their views and recognizes children’s right to be listened to in matters that affect them—and have their views be given “due weight.” Article 13 states that children have the right to express their views and to impart information and ideas through any media of their choosing. These rights are interpreted alongside other rights and emphasize research with versus on or about young children. For example, some chapters combine participation rights with other rights (e.g., the right to play), underscoring the intersectionality of children’s rights. This chapter examines issues and discussions surrounding children’s participation rights in transnational contexts and provides an overview of issues raised by authors in this section, including research ethics, resisting standardizing policies, research with infants, roles of adults, multimodal meaning-making with children, belonging, cultural considerations, and social constructions of childhood.
