Are participation rights a lingua franca? The complexities of translating and comparing the term ‘participation’ in educational contexts

Amy Hanna, Zoe Moody, Lotem Perry-Hazan, Frédéric Darbellay, Katarzyna Gawlicz, Jenna Gillett-Swan, Evie Heard, Maude Louviot, Ann Quennerstedt, Idan Zak-Doron

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Children’s right to express their views under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is commonly referred to as ‘participation’. How this term is used in scholarship, policy and practice, however, varies enormously across linguistic and national contexts. This article reports and discusses four complexities associated with translating and comparing the term participation that were identified from a series of international workshops on children’s rights in education. We conclude that further empirical, interdisciplinary research is required to examine these complexities in further depth.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)541-557
Number of pages17
JournalChildhood
Volume32
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

  • Meaning
  • UNCRC
  • participation
  • signification
  • translation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Anthropology
  • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Life-span and Life-course Studies

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