Join us for a stimulating interactive talk with one of the world’s key experts on children’s rights and the creator and designer of the model, Pathways to Participation.
Children are accorded a range of rights by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Underpinning children’s rights are concepts like agency, the right to have a say, and equity. But what is “equity” for children in relation to adults?
*A Social Justice, Equity, and Policy Research in Education and UniSC event
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Time: Jun 18, 2024 05:00 PM Brisbane
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About the speaker
Join Dr Harry Shier, one of the world’s key experts on children’s rights and the creator and designer of the model, Pathways to Participation for a stimulating, interactive talk that will walk us through his search for what “equity” is and what it means for our relationships with children. In it Shier will return to and update a paper he wrote for UNICEF in 2012, as his contribution to the global drive that resulted in the Sustainable Development Goals.* This twilight talk invites us to re-examine the concepts of ‘non-discrimination’ and join in an exploration of how the concept of “equity” can be meaningfully applied to relationships between children and adults by recognising and tackling “adultism”, here defined as, “the belief that the adult human being is intrinsically superior to or of greater worth than the child, and the child, by default, inferior or of lesser worth”.
Challenging adultism says Shier, enables us to reconceptualise the notion of equity in child-adult relations, incorporating equality as rights-holders, equality as ends rather than means, and equality of human dignity.
Engage in rich conversations, learn from one other, and discover how we can work together to create a more equitable participatory landscape for children. Don't miss this insightful programme where we address the concept of social justice and equity, and what it means for our role as duty-bearers of children’s rights.
Dr Harry Shier is a writer, researcher, facilitator and commentator on children’s rights, participation, and play. Born in Belfast, Shier started as a playworker in the UK, then worked in children’s rights and participation. In 1996, Shier developed the Article 31 (right to play) Children’s Consultancy Scheme, enabling children to act as expert consultants to cultural and recreational institutions throughout the UK, in 2001 Shier moved to Nicaragua, Central America to work with the local community education organisation CESESMA, working as an advocate for/with children and also piloting the Save the Children’s Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluating Children’s Participation. In 2007, Shier was a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child International Expert Group, advising on the final draft of General Comment No 12 on the child’s right to be heard. Shier’s model, Pathways to Participation, is one of the most widely used models for analysing children and youth participation around the world. For current projects and more visit www.harryshier.net
* Shier, H. (2012). What does ‘equality’ mean for children in relation to adults? [Background paper for Global Thematic Consultation on Addressing Inequalities]. United Nations.