From Participation to Citizenship

In this chapter the “right to participation” is evaluated in terms of whether it presumes full citizenship rights for children. The roles of citizenship and statelessness are examined regarding how significant both are for defining identity. Arendt’s notion of “stateless persons” is compared to the UN’s understanding of children as “citizens-in-the-making.” Relational understandings of autonomy lead to an appreciation of children’s identity in Gould’s terms as “selves-in-relations.” For children to be guaranteed what Feinberg calls “rights-in-trust” or rights to an “open future,” children must logically be granted the citizenship right to vote.

The Participation of Children and Adolescents in the Protection System: The Case of the Spanish Legislation

Children’s right to participation is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), specifically in Article 12; however, the participation of children in the protection system continues to be a challenge. There is a need for a paradigm shift, in which children and adolescents (CA) are considered as active subjects of rights in all areas of their lives, and that means allowing them to participate in decisions that concern them. The study analysed 20 Spanish laws, both national and autonomous, that regulate child protection and the rights of CA in the protection system. It focuses on examining the participation of children in the protection system, divided into its three dimensions: the right to be informed, the right to be heard and the right to be involved. There is complexity in the different regulations. All of them are consistent with the CRC and provide for participation, but not all to the same extent. There is a lack of harmonisation between the legislation of autonomous communities, leading to practical difficulties for the professionals who have to implement the legislation on a daily basis.

Children’s Rights in Children’s Hearings: The Impact of covid-19

The Scottish Children’s Hearings System makes life-changing decisions regarding the care and protection of children up to 18 years of age referred due to a need for support – because of offending behaviour or a risk to their physical or emotional safety. In March 2020, due to the covid-19 crisis, Hearings underwent one of the most significant changes since their inception: proceedings shifted to an online conferencing platform (“virtual hearings”), and some procedural modifications were introduced. In June 2020, we used an online survey to gather more than 270 responses from professionals, volunteers, young people, and families who had experience of virtual hearings. These responses highlight that while there are reasonable justifications for the use of virtual hearings, including the duty to ensure orders are appropriately reviewed and renewed, concerns related to children and young people’s right to participation, privacy and representation bring into question the extent to which children’s rights are realised in virtual Children’s Hearings.

Difficulties with the Meaning of Equality, Non-Discrimination and Participation in the CRPD, and their Application to the Abolition with Support Model

Chapter 7 considers the difficulties with the meaning of equality and non-discrimination in the CRPD and what this means for the call for the abolition of mental health law. These difficulties include determining the equality of what, equality with respect to whom and finding an appropriate comparator, determining whether involuntary detention and treatment is a benefit or detriment, and how to address the difference and sameness of persons with mental impairments. Specifically, whether the difference between persons with and without mental impairments is real and whether supported decision-making is sufficient to make persons with mental impairments equal to those without disabilities. It also introduces and discusses the third limb of the interpretive compass, the right to participation. It argues that the right to participation is a right for persons with disabilities and their organizations to be consulted with in good faith about policy and individual health decisions and for their views to be taken seriously. It does not mean that States Parties have to do everything persons with disabilities want, nor is it a power of veto. That said, States Parties should probably implement the wishes of persons with disabilities unless there is a good reason not to. Even so, the right to participation raises a number of difficulties in determining whether disabled persons organizations are sufficiently representative of their constituents and all persons with disabilities generally, including those with intersecting identities.

Teachers’ Perspective on Student’s Right to Participation in Classroom Management

The study aimed at exploring the teachers’ perspective on the right of the child to participate in the seating arrangement and how the teachers resolved when values and norms were in conflict. The data were collected through questionnaires by accidental sampling technique from seven regencies in Central Java and East Java, Indonesia. The participants of the research were teachers at Junior High Schools and Senior High Schools. The results of the study showed the following findings. Firstly, 81% of the teachers stated that the students had the right to choose their own seats. However, half of the teachers excluded the rights of the students to choose with whom they sat. Secondly, practices in different schools, especially private and Islamic schools, demonstrated that religious norms played such a significant role in the school and classroom management that the values derived from the legal sources were subject to the aim of complying with the religious norms. Keywords: Child Right to Participation, Classroom Management, Seating Arrangement, Teachers’ Perspective.

Racial Inclusion and Justice at Catholic Colleges and Universities: From Tokenism to Participation

The chapter considers various elements of the discussion concerning racial equity and inclusion on college campuses today. It presents some statistics showing persistence of racism on college campuses today, higher education’s historical ties to slavery and white supremacy, the prevalence of micro-aggressions and racial battle fatigue, and some recent resistance to diversity and inclusivity on Catholic campuses. The author argues that Catholic social teaching requires moving beyond tokenism to promoting the equality and right to participation of people of color in all facets of campus life and offers some practical suggestions for achieving this goal. As in the case of U.S. higher education as a whole, some progress has been made at Catholic colleges and universities to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion of racially minoritized students, faculty, and staff. However, the author contends much work remains to be done.

The politics of authoritarian empowerment: Participatory pricing in China

Partial and perceived empowerment in the practice of public hearings, widely spreading across China since the late 1990s and still operating today, is puzzling. Citizens enjoy the right to participation, information, and formal equality but their political empowerment is constrained without the right to elect and dismiss officials there. This article examines the politics of ‘authoritarian empowerment,’ which combines partial empowerment and sophisticated control, and separates psychological empowerment from political empowerment. Through such a delicate combination and separation, citizens are partially empowered, paradoxically, to prevent their full empowerment. Our study is a supplement to the previous study of authoritarian deliberation (consultation) and phantom democracy, discloses the deficiency of the literature on local deliberative democracy in China, and enriches the literature on sophisticated authoritarian innovation in Southeast Asia. The article is based on documented research, interviews with 469 non-participants and 72 participants, and an in-depth case study in Shanghai.