who’s afraid now? reconstructing canadian citizenship education through transdisciplinarity

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Who's Afraid Now? Reconstructing Canadian Citizenship EducationThrough TransdisciplinarityRichard C. Mitchell

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Who’s Afraid Now? ReconstructingCanadian Citizenship EducationThrough Transdisciplinarity1

Richard C. Mitchell

INTRODUCTION

Viewed through the lenses of the United Nations Convention onthe Rights of the Child (or CRC), this article critically evaluatesthe growing controversy surrounding the teaching of human rightsin Canada. During a lengthy period of multicultural angst andcreeping xenophobia in the country (Editorial 2007, 2009), I builda case for a critical theoretical and applied reconsideration ofCanadian citizenship education. An exhaustive study released byCanadian lawmakers from the Senate Standing Committee onHuman Rights found that children and young people have been‘‘silenced’’ from any meaningful debate on participatory, demo-cratic citizenship (Senate of Canada 2007, 201) particularly inschools. Critical educators Henry Giroux (2003), and Giroux andSusan Searls Giroux (2004) also decry the limited spaces on offerin capitalist societies for political and social participation of youngpeople. Similarly, Hyslop-Margison and Thayer (2009) argue thateven in the face of the impending collapse of neoliberal capitalism,‘‘the primary focus remains on saving a dying economic paradigm’’rather than positing alternative models for an active, critical ‘‘thickdemocracy’’ through citizenship education (xv). In line with thesecritiques and with previous empirical studies on the implemen-tation of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights ofthe Child in Canada and abroad, I present a reconsideration of

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underlying theory and an alternative model for citizenshipeducation (Mitchell 2000, 2005b; Moore and Mitchell 2008, 2009).The debate surrounding the contested nature of ‘‘citizenship’’ fora former Canadian ‘‘child soldier’’ in Afghanistan provides anadditional critical entry point into this project. Perhaps the mostegregious example of Canada’s young, ‘‘silenced citizens’’ to date,Omar Khadr was shot twice in the back by U.S. military personnelin Afghanistan and transferred to Guantanamo Base in Cuba wherehe has languished since 2003 awaiting trial (Shephard 2008; see alsoSenate of Canada 2007). Incredibly, the current federal governmenthas taken the unprecedented step of appealing a Supreme Court ofCanada ruling that ordered repatriation of Khadr, the only Westerncitizen remaining in the Cuban prison. While perhaps remote, theapplication of widely accepted human rights standards containedin the CRC could prove a more effective response to unravelingCanadian citizenship issues for this young person, a ‘‘child soldier’’under complex international circumstances.

As Howe and Covell (2005, 63) observe ‘‘the enjoyment of rightsis basic to citizenship,’’ but under the current regime Canadianchildren’s citizenship is consistent with core human rights princi-ples ‘‘only in part.’’ At the same time, it is acknowledged at the out-set that contentious and contested notions related to inclusivecitizenship for Aboriginal and First Nations peoples in Canadaare bracketed as a separate yet integrally related discussion beyondthe generalized scope of the article. As Kincheloe (2008) declaredthe vast majority of

. . .people are absolutely unaware they are using Native land—it is just notpart of Western consciousness—that we are on Native land . . . . It seemsrather obvious (even though nobody seems to think about it) that a centraldimension of any critical pedagogy has to deal with the subject of indgene-ity, and it is something very few critical scholars are aware of or interestedin (153–154).

Returning to the school and its potential as an emancipatory site tocreate conditions for autonomy and social change, Giroux (2003)argues that most educators utterly fail to take their relationshipwith students seriously. ‘‘[E]ducation as a cultural pedagogicalpractice takes place across multiple sites as it signals how, withindiverse contexts, education makes us both subjects of and subjectsto relations of power’’ (64). Stasiulis (2002, 519) further describesthis decades-old extension of human rights in Canada towards

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young people as full and active citizens as primarily an‘‘imaginary’’ effort, and that ‘‘participation in public institutionsis negligible’’ in either consultative or decision-making capacities.Civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, freedom ofthe press, freedom of assembly, the right to adequate housing,clothing, and care, and the right to political and institutional partici-pation all promote autonomy. In similar critiques, O’Byrne (2003),Sen (2004), and Turner (1993, 2006) are calling for a retheorizingof both human rights and citizenship education from an integrated,‘‘transdisciplinary’’ perspective (see also Shafir’s 2004 argument).

Nevertheless, many contributors to human rights and citizenshipeducation discourses overlook the ‘‘transdisciplinary’’ potentials(see Nicolescu’s 2002 widespread definition) for the CRC to inte-grate both pedagogies with active, participatory, even radicalopportunities for new democratic citizenship relations (e.g.,Lindgren Alves 2000; Isin and Turner 2007). Transdisciplinarythinking ‘‘operates through an intellectual milieu comprisingdiverse theories of knowledge which span traditions of positivismto postmodernism’’ assert Albrecht, Freeman, and Higginbotham(1998, 57). To inform this article, for example, authors withineducation, critical theory, cultural studies, feminist thinking, soci-ology, citizenship studies, philosophy, social policy, developmentalpsychology, international law, systems theory, quantum physics,qualitative analytical procedures, and coronary epidemiology haveeach contributed to the analysis.

In keeping with Giroux and Searls Giroux’s thinking (2004, 102),the ‘‘transdisciplinary work’’ argued for here provides continuedmomentum for interrupting and challenging historical means ofknowledge production that have been hierarchically ordered, andmost often deployed to sanction forms of exclusion. Indeed, thewhole ecology of human rights education is in disarray in thecountry (Senate of Canada 2005, 2007), and in response, the mainargument considers how citizenship education might be recon-structed to include the voices, views, and experiences of youngpeople as obliged under CRC Article 12. While reviewing thehuman rights implementation efforts of one state alone, it is worthrecalling that sites in 193 industrialized and nonindustrializednations are grappling with similar conceptual and political chal-lenges emerging with the inclusion of ‘‘underage’’ citizens in suchmatters (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights2006). Described by scholars as ‘‘Canada’s best-kept rights secret’’

Reconstructing Canadian Citizenship Education 39


(Covell 2007, 241), application of the CRC in Canadian classroomsis wholly dependent upon the whim of the individual practitioner,and not upon international law and certainly not under the rubricof emancipatory pedagogy! In light of the growing knowledge defi-cit and as a contribution towards citizenship education, I alsore-present a ‘‘transdisciplinary’’ CRC model (Mitchell 2005b, 325)for teaching young people’s human rights from primary to postse-condary levels (see also UN Committee on the Rights of the Child,1995, 2003; Senate of Canada 2007, 201 for further rationales).

In support of the main argument and its transdisciplinary model,I include the following sections beginning with a comparative over-view of ideological and theoretical issues confounding Canada’schild rights legislative and research agendas. Second, a theoreticaldiscussion takes place with a view to reconstructing children’srights education within the context of an emergent, transdisciplin-ary human rights pedagogy. Third, empirical support for this shiftin thinking is presented through a secondary analysis of interviewdata from my doctoral study comparing Canadian and Scottishchildren’s rights education policies (Mitchell 2002, 2003a,b,2005a,b, 2007a,b). Finally, a key finding from that research suggest-ing that CRC Article 42 was conceived by treaty drafters as an inter-national indicator for treaty compliance is reconsidered (Mitchell2005b, 2007b) as a transdisciplinary heuristic for pedagogically inte-grating human rights and citizenship education. The approach isalso congruent with calls for radicalizing citizenship educationthrough new ‘‘models of analysis’’ posited by critical pedagoguesGiroux and Searls Giroux (2004, 102).

OVERVIEW OF CANADIAN CHILD RIGHTS EDUCATION

Rather than adopting the framework of the UNUniversal Declarationof Human Rights (1948) as Lohrenscheit (2002), Lindgren Alves(2000), and others have chosen, the article reviews the emergingopportunities for citizenship education through multisectoralimplementation of the CRC (1989). As David (2002, 260) points out,due to the continued dearth of applied research, misunderstandingsabout the CRC’s core principles prevail, and the fullest significance ofthe civil rights of children are ‘‘still at an emerging and fragile phase.’’As many readers will recall, the United States and Somalia are cur-rently the only two states that have not yet ratified the treaty making

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it the most widely supported human rights agreement in history—although in principle only in many cases.

It is now part of the national fabric that former Canadian PrimeMinister Brian Mulroney instigated and cohosted the 1990 UNWorld Summit for Children, and similar to dozens of UN memberstates his government ratified the CRC the following year. MostCanadians are also quite proud of their international reputationfor human rights promotion at home and abroad. However, theUN’s Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004; UnitedNations General Assembly Resolution 49=184 1994) passed by rela-tively unheralded, and frequent invitations to educators to developand implement rights-based curricula from primary to postsecond-ary levels have also been largely ignored (see Murray 1995; Howe2005; Howe and Covell 2005 for exceptions). Further, it is neitherwidely known nor well understood that the UN Committee onthe Rights of the Child has twice recommended to pedagogues toundertake ‘‘nationwide education’’ and inform Canadians regard-ing the treaty’s ‘‘principles and provisions’’ as obliged under Arti-cle 42. The Geneva-based Committee has also requested theConvention be integrated into the ‘‘training curricula for pro-fessional groups dealing with children’’ (United Nations Commit-tee on the Rights of the Child 1995, D-19).

To date, neither recommendation has occurred in any meaning-ful or systematic way. Moreover, national, provincial, and terri-torial stakeholders in government and civil society havecompleted contributions to the most recent report underArticle 44—due in Geneva in early 2009—that is bogged down atthis writing in federal government channels. Increasingly, civilsociety actors are commenting upon the unfinished business fromthe UN’s earlier comments contained in their Concluding Observa-tions from 1995 and 2003—each of which represent national reportcards on human rights promotion and citizenship education.‘‘While Canada consistently rates as one of the best places to live[for adults], the results of the UN’s findings for Canada’s effortsto improve children’s lives are alarming,’’ said Rita Karakas, CEOof Save the Children Canada after the second CRC report was eval-uated in Geneva in 2003. ‘‘In spite of numerous commitments, thereseems to be a staggering gap between the rhetoric of promises andthe reality of children’s lives’’ (Save the Children 2003, Introduc-tion). Curiously, the very notion of rights for children still engen-ders an ‘‘unproductive’’ even ‘‘hysterical debate’’ noted by David



(2002, 261–262)—a debate characterized in Canada by its funda-mental lack of accurate information.

The parliamentary furor that erupted in 1999 over a proposedElections Canada=UNICEF school-based vote on children’s rightsoffers one such illustration. After far-right opposition leadersdecried the intrusion of UNICEF into the sacred domain of ‘‘fam-ily,’’ 25% of the students actually allowed by teachers to participatechose ‘‘the right to have a family’’ (CRCArticle 5) from a list of ten asthe most important (see also Howe and Covell 2005, 4). As has beenthe case in U.K. nations (National Children’s Bureau 2005), I arguethat rights-based citizenship education beginning with and buildingupon basic knowledge of the CRC delivered through provincial cur-ricula is a viable strategy to overcome this violation of internationallaw. In another contrast with many Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development member states, a November 2004‘‘National Child Day’’ poll confirmed that Canadians knew little—indeed 14% knew nothing at all—about contemporary children’srights issues (Ipsos-Reid=Save the Children Canada 2004). A further2007 citizenship survey of 1,005 adults conducted by telephone bythe same pollster found that 60% failed the same exam questionoffered to new immigrants before they become Canadians (Ipsos-Reid=Dominion Institute of Canada 2007). Rather ironically, how-ever, Canada’s National Action Plan, which follows up on the2002 UN Special Session for Children, invites educators to partici-pate in the ‘‘monitoring of progress and results . . . including greaterpublic awareness of the Convention’’ (Government of Canada 2004,14; see also Senate of Canada 2007). Clearly, the Convention remainsmisunderstood by most child and youth professionals, parents, andyoung people across the nation, and its adoption has languished (seeBlack 2007; Pitre 2007 for recent U.S. pedagogical developments).

Perhaps—as theorists from various paradigms have begun tospeculate—a treaty such as this Convention is better understoodwithin the human rights regime as a ‘‘rhizomatic’’ expression of‘‘transdisciplinarity, diversity and plurality’’ (Holmes and Gastaldo2004, 259; also Albrecht, Freeman, and Higginbotham 1998;Nicolescu 2002; Allan and I’Anson 2004; Prout 2005, 115; Bloch,Kennedy, Lightfoot, and Weyenberg 2006; Mitchell 2007a). Indeed,the CRC represents the most consensual expression of humanrights in history moving throughout world society in the past twodecades in the same rapid, unpredictable fashion as the horticul-tural rhizome—strawberry and spider plants being two of many

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such examples. According to Nicolescu (2002), the term ‘‘transdis-ciplinarity’’ retains a certain pristine charm to date because it hasnot yet been corrupted or coopted, but similar to the CRC hasspread around the globe emerging in unexpected places and givingvoice to a lively new debate not yet widely understood. Transdisci-plinarity was coined to give expression to the perceived need—especially within education—to celebrate the transgression of disci-plinary boundaries, an act that surpasses multidisciplinary, eveninterdisciplinary thinking. It is a remarkably apt description mirror-ing how the rhizome moves and neatly characterizing how the CRChas so rapidly evolved as well (see also Apple, Kenway, and Singh2005; Prout 2005; Bloch, Kennedy, Lightfoot, and Weyenberg 2006for additional rhizomatic analyses).

A similar, wholly unprecedented illustration is found withinAmerican jurisprudence. Citing ‘‘evolving national standards’’ a2005 U.S. Supreme Court precedent was set that upheld a Missouridecision citing CRC Article 37a while commuting a death-rowinmate who had committed murder as a youth in Roper v Simmons(Supreme Court of Missouri 2003; Law Center Cable News Network2005). The judgment appears all the more remarkable comingfrom the only industrialized state yet to ratify the treaty. In thisregard, the CRC has been correctly theorized by Price-Cohen andKilbourne (1998) as a form of meta-law, and recommendationscoming from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child operat-ing as de facto draft jurisprudence in many parts of the world.

COMPARING AND COMPETING CANADIAN DISCOURSES

Isin and Turner (2007) note that human rights and citizenship areoften in competition with state obligations, and nowhere is this morethe case than with the truncated application of child and youthhuman rights in Canadian schools. Paradoxically when comparedto many of their arguments (and with Turner’s in 2006), it is the statewith obligations such as education, health care, increased opportu-nities for social and political participation, justice, social and rehabili-tative services, and so on when reading the treaty’s text and notindividual citizens. It is true that much domestic legislation containsprovisions consistent with the CRC and that Canadian courts haveconsidered the treaty’s texts in over one hundred cases (Society forChildren and Youth 2003), but despite notable achievements, serious



ideological questions remain as to whether the treaty has made anyimpact on the individual lives of young people (Mitchell 2003a,2005b; Senate of Canada 2005, 2007). Although unsupported in theliterature, the promotion of young peoples’ rights is still miscon-strued as being in conflict with the rights of families, and with adultswho provide services (see Butler 2000; David 2002; Tang 2003 forastute analyses). Howe and Covell (2005) note that rather than grasp-ing the Convention as a tool critics describe it as ‘‘UNICEF propa-ganda and as an anti-family document that serves to indoctrinatechildren’’ (5). While such theoretical constructions of young peoples’rights are being contested elsewhere, few Canadian educators haveconsidered the main barrier to implementing the CRC’s standardsis simply the lack of knowledge within elementary, secondary, andpostsecondary education (Howe and Covell 2005; also Covell2007). What, if any, are the CRC’s minimum standards?

Reviewing treaty texts found in Article 42, for example, the stateagrees to ‘‘make the principles and provisions . . .widely known, byappropriate and active means, to adults and children alike.’’ It isquite clear that at a minimum, basic knowledge of these coreprinciples—Article 2 and nondiscrimination, Article 3 and bestinterests, Article 6 and healthy development, along with Article12 and the right to participate—allow the CRC to be holisticallyintroduced by pedagogues. However, due to ideological conten-tions and the resultant omission of the CRC from most provincialcurricula, Canada’s global reputation as a human rights championmust be reevaluated. Study after study reveals that young peoplereceive little to no knowledge of human rights principles, nor dothey hear from educators any information about a set of citizenshiprights entirely distinct from Canadian adults (Senate of Canada2007). In a previous study by me, a key informant complained:What kind of nation gives its citizens rights but is afraid to tell them?(Mitchell 2005a, emphasis in original).

Notwithstanding, attention from advertisers has long indicatedother assumptions about the competence and influence of childrenand young people, and the economic power they exercise, evenwhen very young, challenges the notion of a lack of agency andinterpersonal power. Children and young people play a central rolein Canadian society as they do in all societies even when veryyoung (Alderson 2000). In a critique of current educationalapproaches in the United States, however, Giroux (2003) assertsthat citizenship is more than consumerism, and that democracy is

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not simply an extension of capitalist society. More importantly, hesuggests the experience of citizenship in schools offers potentialtools for new theory development. Canadian human rights theoristHoward-Hassmann (2005) declares that capitalism may be a neces-sary, though hardly sufficient, condition for democracy to thrive.Her contemporary Howe (2005) has also repeatedly observedhow the CRC offers new approaches for citizenship education. Todate, the predominantly medicalized approach to children’s devel-opment has shaped Canadian dissemination of the CRC. As aresult, many research agendas into its impact on individualchildren have grappled with questions of whether human rightseducation contributes to well-being rather than towards a moreinclusive democracy (see analyses by Stasiulis 2002; Mitchell2003a,b; Tang 2003).

In Canada, age- and stage-based trajectories portray children’sdevelopment mechanistically, and quite often pathologically asunfinished adults, dysfunctional family members alone, futuretax-payers, or investments ‘‘not yet’’ competent to have rights(Dodge 2003; also Dahlberg, Moss, and Pence 1999; Gergen 2000;Coppock 2002; Mitchell 2003b for critiques). As a further example,influential investigators from the Canadian Policy ResearchNetworks have considered the ambivalent intersection between‘‘youth’’ and ‘‘citizenship’’ in the literature, and essentialize that‘‘citizenship is a status traditionally reserved for adults.’’ Whilemany adults ‘‘might accept that youth are citizens’’ at the same timethey are skeptical of the notion that anyone classed ‘‘as a youth,even those over 18, are full citizens. Somehow it seems that they can-not be more than citizens-in-becoming’’ (Beauvais, McKay, andSeddon 2001, 5, emphasis in original; also Maxwell, Rosell, andForest 2003 for similar truncated views). Also assuming a develop-mentalist trope, CRC scholars Howe and Covell (2005) observeincongruently ‘‘it is only in adolescence that children’s cognitivecapacity, identity development, and interests in social issues con-verge to allow both the motivation to learn about and the abilityto fully understand the implication of rights education’’ (121). Suchtheoretical assumptions stand in sharp contrast to the plethora ofnew evidence from U.K. child studies and human rights and cit-izenship investigations (see particularly James and Prout 1997; alsoAlderson and Goodey 1998; Alderson 1998, 2000; Christensen andJames 2000; Prout 2000, 2005; Devine 2002; Allan and I’Anson2004; Kellett Forrest, Dent, and Ward 2004; Davis 2007).



The Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare in Canada (2009)provides another example of how significant Canadian resourcesare focused upon resiliency and developmental outcomes in childwelfare, and less with participatory civil rights or with creatingand building opportunities for prosocial, active citizenship. In arare youth-led investigation from the Centre of Excellence forYouth Engagement, researchers once again found that youth arerarely associated with policy-making—from the points of view ofyouth, decision-makers in government, or those in general society(Lui 2001). Moreover, while some states are reconsidering loweringthe voting age through legislative review, in Canada casting a ballotin civic or federal elections along with the ability to legally sign con-tracts are the prerequisites for citizenship. The sole focus uponand promotion of adult human rights within Citizenship andImmigration Canada (2009) provides additional evidence of thisrights violation and exclusion based upon generation. Almost with-out exception, Canadian policy makers and children’s researchersalike continue to ignore contributions from young people themselvesas active, competent citizens (see also Mitchell 1996; Maxwell,Rosell, and Forest 2003; MacKinnon 2004). U.K. educator MaryKellett’s work within the Children’s Research Centre, Open Univer-sity in London has given students as young as 10 years the tools toconduct and publish social science research and is an example ofthe kind of competency undermined by dominant ‘‘age and stage’’theories, and hegemonic notions of ‘‘child’’ as future citizen or‘‘adult-in-waiting’’ (Kellett, Forrest, Dent, and Ward 2004; Mooreand Mitchell 2008; also Prout 2000). Perhaps not surprisingly, oneinternational collection of authors reviewing ‘‘citizenship edu-cation’’ elicited no Canadian contributions (Wilde 2005).

This myopic approach in the citizenship discourse may simplybe due to an overall lack of critical discussion propelling child stu-dies research and policy agendas forward in this country, as it hasin many other states, through questioning dominant social con-structions of children’s roles within postmodern families and socie-ties. For example, in a study of the U.K. government’s struggle withnotions of ‘‘rights and responsibilities’’ (Such and Walker 2005),investigators found that to develop effective policies relating tochildren, decision-makers need to ‘‘learn from children’s privateexperience of responsibility in the home’’ (39). These authors alsoargue that children understood well both moral and relationalcomponents of ‘‘responsibility’’ in very complex ways. One glaring

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contradiction lies with the state identifying many children as inno-cent and in need of protection while others when crimes are com-mitted are singled out to be tried, convicted, housed, and abusedin adult prisons—the Omar Khadr case cited in opening paragraphsbeing one of the most recent (see also UN Committee on the Rightsof the Child 1995, 2003). While Such and Walker’s findings mightpresent a challenge to U.K. Labour’s ‘‘rights and responsibilities’’philosophy, such child-centred rights research stands in sharp con-trast to that driving the Canadian agenda, which has shifted muchfarther to the right of the political spectrum (see also Turner 2006;Isin and Turner 2007 for additional discussion). Mooney, Knox,Schacht, and Nelson (2004) observe that ‘‘Canadian legislationrarely recognizes children’’ (183). Thus, ‘‘their fundamental civic,social and political freedoms are dependent upon the goodwillof adults’’ (see also Butler 2000; Hume 2002; Blatchford 2004;Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News 2004 for supporting evi-dence). Similar findings were reported within British Columbiahealth care (Mitchell 2000) where students complained that educa-tors within one large urban high school had never heard of the CRCor its institutional implications:

Use of the CRC is something that affects every single aspect of my life . . .I’ve never taken a course; I’ve never had anyone sit down and teach meabout the Convention. It’s one of the things I would like to see happenwithin our education system over the next few years hopefully. But I havebeen involved in courses where I have informed various teachers that Ihave about the Convention and been able to dedicate a class or twotowards learning about it (Mitchell 2000, 342).

While Stasiulis (2002, 507) comments upon truncated Canadianefforts to reconfigure children’s citizenship, she recounts layers ofinertia through the ‘‘relative failure’’ of all governments and themanner in which state policy, Canadian courts, and children’spolitics have responded to the ‘‘imaginary of the active child citi-zen.’’ As in the United States, successive Canadian governmentshave provided limited political space to young people and nar-rowly construe ‘‘participation rights as limited to family law andjuvenile justice. The reluctance of adult decision-makers to openup policy-making to the contributions of children has been furtherhindered by the current anti-democratic cast of neo-liberal govern-ance’’ (Stasiulis 2002, 507). The situation has come under review byCanada’s uppermost political chamber (Senate of Canada 2001,



2005, 2007). In a report of initial findings they note during ‘‘thecourse of the study the Committee became increasingly convincedthat, in both theory and in practice, children’s rights in this countryare not understood, or indeed provided’’ (Senate of Canada 2005,forward, emphasis in original). In a submission to this Committee,human rights educator Williams (2005, 4–5) highlights jurisdic-tional ambiguities and ‘‘the culturally blind, adversarial nature ofhuman rights discussions’’ has left the Convention relativelyunknown across Canada and ‘‘a text without a context.’’ She furtherobserves that Canadians consider that they are world leaders byinternationally promoting the CRC while at home a profound lackof human rights knowledge persists. She also contends the treatyhas met with a ‘‘lukewarm response’’ by Aboriginal peoples ‘‘manyof whom have seen the CRC as yet another instrument of dominantculture oppression.’’ For example, numerous pieces of legislation todo with First Nations and Aboriginal children throughout Cana-dian history have ideologically interpreted the ‘‘best interests ofthe child’’ principle to oppress cultures and remove young peopleto dominant culture families (see Kline’s 1992 trenchant analysis).Mired in more or less medieval thinking about the law and child-hood, it is likely that confusion over the CRC’s basic civil rightstenets will continue for some time to come among key stakeholdersand policy makers.

To sum up, it appears that one way forward lies simply throughthe recognition that a narrow, disciplinary myopia has overempha-sized children as future investments with a resultant misunder-standing of how active, rights-based experiences of citizenshipmay help democratize schools (Roche 1999; Mitchell 2000, 2003a;2005b; Devine 2002; Stasiulis 2002; Howe 2005; Howe and Covell2005). The following section reconsiders the ‘‘multidisciplinaryvision’’ put forward by David (2002, 260) by reconceptualizingthe cross-cutting nature of CRC education (see also Carter andOsler 2000).

RETHEORIZING CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS

Returning to consider the rhizome metaphor, various schools ofthought about the ontology of childhood may also be classifiedunder ‘‘specific paradigms dealing with ultimate or first principles’’as Guba and Lincoln (1998, 200) argue (also cited in Holmes and

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Gastaldo 2004, 259). These latter authors observe the movement ofcompeting paradigms within many schools of thought—including their own field of nursing—that are challenging tra-ditional scientific views in this unpredictable fashion. The idea thattheory development may be taking place in the same approach asthe rhizome—just beneath the surface and beyond measure—ispopular in many discourses. While psychologist Carl Jung (1956)notes one of the earliest rhizomatic metaphors (xxiv), many contem-porary authors such as Holmes and Gastaldo refer to the work ofDeleuze and Guattari (1987) in this regard. They emphasize thatto overcome theoretical dogma constitutes a critical step in theacquisition of new knowledge. Similarly, in their study of coronaryepidemiology Albrecht, Freeman, and Higginbotham (1998, 71)advance the rhizomatic framework for thinking about transdiscipli-narity relative to complexity theory, nonlinearity, interactive caus-ality, and emergent properties of systems. Pursuing ‘‘knowledgeabout the nature of the system as a whole inexorably demands atransdisciplinary mode of thinking,’’ they maintain.

O’Byrne (2003) also criticizes these modernist tendenciestowards disciplinary thinking within academic circles that haveresulted in discussing children’s rights as distinct from largerhuman rights concerns. This is because ‘‘paradoxically, teachingand research on children’s rights often adopt a broaderapproach . . . a key problem with the idea of children’s rights liesin the definition of childhood which of course differs across timeand space’’ (374). Meanwhile, Woodhead (1997, 1999, 2000) hasidentified the emergence of a child rights paradigm, and manyresearchers have been reexamining the dynamics of adult=childpower relations in this light (Alderson 2000; Davis 2000; Mayall2000; Alanen and Mayall 2001; Devine 2002; Prout 2000; John2003). As noted within Canada, dominant theories within develop-mental psychology provide the disciplinary lenses through whichmost research on the CRC has focused to date. Nonetheless, ten-sions and wide gaps exist between the traditionally reductive,developmental approach to ‘‘childhood’’ and to ‘‘adolescence’’ thathave simply reconstructed child rights education in terms of futurebeneficial outcomes (Howe 2005; Howe and Covell 2005; Howe andCovell 2007, 230, 278). Mitchell (2003a) observes this tendency issimilar to the ‘‘Wizard of Oz’’ in that such frameworks serve toobscure, and often to deny, children’s human rights through ideo-logically constructed curtains. In line with this critique, Coppock



(2002) observes the dominance of ‘‘child psychiatry can undermineor overtly breach the core principles of . . . the rights of children’’(139). Moving away from the reified delivery of ‘‘services’’ towardsrights-based ‘‘spaces’’ is essential, contend Moss and Petrie (2002,17–20), and both policy makers and practitioners with childrenreally have no choice about clarity between ‘‘theory’’ and ‘‘notheory,’’ or indeed, between ‘‘theory’’ and ‘‘practice.’’ In fact,research accounts of the experiences of young people are neverneutrally produced or interpreted, they observe. ‘‘Theories—whether in the form of academic, political or professional ideas, oroffered in the guise of ‘common sense’—shape our understandingsand govern our actions, whether we recognize this or not (17).’’

Beyond Canada’s borders, newer approaches to considering howto teach and mediate rights-based relations have sprung upconcomitant with the newer ‘‘sociology of childhood’’ (James andProut 1997; Freeman 1998; Lee 1999; Christensen and James 2000;Jenks 2000; Mayall 2000, 2002)—a discourse starting with vastly dif-ferent assumptions about competency and development of youngpeople. Mayall (2000, 2002) notes the historical intersection of thisnew sociology of childhood with the children’s rights discourse,and Jenks (2000) maintains its tenets offer new approaches for inves-tigating children’s social realities. ‘‘What is it we want from childrenand childhood? My answer is to say: go back to the phenomenonand show how it is built up’’ (in Christensen and James 2000, 67).However, Saunders and Goddard (2001, 443, 448) express deepreservations with regard to these ‘‘authors within the new socialstudies of childhood.’’ Their research argues that ‘‘the insight andlanguage development of those who wrote the United NationsConvention on the Rights of the Child has either been ignored oris yet to be discovered by [these] authors, even those purportedlyconcerned about ‘childhoods’ and children’s rights.’’

Moreover, as O’Byrne (2003) and Sen (2004) rightly speculate,human rights theories appear to be evolving, due at least in partto the widespread implementation of the CRC and resultantprofessional adjustments. White (2002) declares the CRC combinestwo main dynamics: ‘‘To extend the fundamental human rightsrecognized for adults to children . . . the logic here is inclusion . . . .Secondly, the Convention calls for recognition that children’s parti-cular status engenders specific forms of vulnerability, interests andentitlements’’ (1095) (see also Jans 2004). Also analyzing children’srights and citizenship, Roche (1999) contends that ‘‘we need to

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rethink the value of the language of rights and the social signifi-cance of this language. Rights are not just about state-citizen rela-tions but about how civil society should imagine itself’’ (475).Giroux (2003) maintains that North American children are beingoffered increasingly less standing as citizens in the public sphere‘‘and thus are denied any sense of entitlement or agency’’ (xiv).Their voices are being drowned out of public debate while ‘‘policiesand legislative practices are constructed in terms of their needs’’with the majority of concerns ‘‘framed within the realm of the priv-ate sphere of the family.’’ This concept of ‘‘needs’’ dominates thepsychological literature as well as social policy discussions asGiroux opines within the context of the traditional family alonewhatever one’s view of that unit might be (see Aitkenhead 1978;Marshall 1997; Woodhead 1997, 2000). As a result of this domi-nance, Lowden (2002, 106) recounts ‘‘a decade of dispute’’ withinnursing regarding interpretations of children’s rights. Similar toAlaimo (2002), Coppock (2002), and O’Byrne (2003), Lowden arguesthat diagnostic and clinical concerns within this discussion are stillheavily weighted by ‘‘the evolution of the meanings of childhood.’’

In response, traditional social scientists as well as those consider-ing themselves social constructionists, poststructuralists, and post-modernists have begun to consider the value in transdisciplinarythinking to neutralize the effect of such ideologies embeddedwithin and across all disciplines. Critical theorists Giroux andSearls Giroux (2004) point out that while educators might be‘‘forced to work within academic disciplines, they can developtransdisciplinary tools’’ that challenge the existing limits of estab-lished fields, and ‘‘contest the broader economic, political, andcultural conditions that produce unequal relations of power’’(102). In this light, ethnographic, grounded, and participatoryresearch approaches are beginning to reveal how it is that childrenand young people impact upon and participate in their own devel-opment, the development of their siblings and peers, and even thatof their adult caregivers (Christensen and James 2000; Mayall 2000,2002; Foley, Parton, Roche, and Tucker 2003; Hallett and Prout2003). Also prevalent across disciplinary lines, child and youthscholars are recognizing how exchanges of power are central to mak-ing new meaning of human rights in applied settings. Drawingupon Foucault and Giddens, for example, Devine (2002, 303) arguesa ‘‘theory of power is central’’ to any new understanding of humanrights in educational settings. Similar to Allan and I’Anson’s (2004)



rhizomatic analysis of one Scottish school, she contends that con-temporary educators must first take the structural dynamics ofadult=child relations into account through citizenship models thatemphasize connectedness, interdependence, and community.

In addition, Lenzer (2002, 216) points unequivocally towards thisbroad analysis. ‘‘It is important to discuss the UNCRC within thelarger framework of human rights’’ (see also Luhmann 1965;Koizumi 2001; Verschraegen 2002; Mitchell 2007a, 2007b; Moore2006). Rather than viewing adults and children as fixed categories,a rights-based approach facilitates engagements that transcenddisciplinary thinking while making sense of the interconnected nat-ure of all relationships inside and beyond classrooms. White (2002)considers young people in this context and declares ‘‘the key issuehere is recognition that children should not simply be regarded asscale model adults, but taken on their own terms, as a set of devel-opment subjects requiring a distinctive and particular approach’’(1095–1096). Against the backdrop of ‘‘risk society’’ for youngpeople, Jans (2004) further contends

Due to changing social conditions active citizenship becomes a dynamicprocess rather than a standard, clear-cut set of rights and responsibilities.Furthermore, childhood presents itself more and more as an ambivalentsocial phenomenon. On the one hand, children are seen as autonomousindividuals, on the other hand, as objects of protection. Nevertheless, todaychildren can be seen as active citizens . . .Accepting playful and ambivalentforms of citizenship, child participation presents itself no longer as anutopia, but as a fact (27).

This ‘‘dynamic process’’ fits quite congruently with a treatythat cuts across the disciplinary spectrum and service deliverysystems to incorporate a standard set of principles based inrelationship more than law or policy. Adopting a similar stance,O’Byrne (2003) observes we must pay attention to ‘‘violations ofhuman rights targeted specifically at children—even if by doingso we lead ourselves once again into the quicksand of definingchildhood’’ (375). However, by sociologically reconceptualizinghuman rights he also rejects the dualism frequently present withinhuman rights theorizing and represented by universalist versusculturally relative thinking. In the shift towards this more transdis-ciplinary perspective, he draws upon Rorty who bridges the tiredmodernist=postmodern divide by inviting social scientists to ‘‘movebeyond epistemological perspectives which claim that we can,

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somehow through critique or reason, know the world’’ (O’Byrne2003, 43). Such perspectives are ‘‘flawed’’ he claims. While offeringa mainly sympathetic critique of cultural relativism, Rorty also callson activists and intellectuals alike to abandon their quest for ‘‘uni-versals’’ and accept that the discourse on human rights is a mainlyWestern liberal one (cited in O’Byrne 2003, 43–45). While critiquesof the ‘‘child rights regime’’ (Pupavac 1998, and others) repeatedlycomplain about this point, the responses by Rorty and O’Byrneappear fairly reasonable notwithstanding much of the current neo-liberal, oil-driven geopolitical climate. Burman (2001) suggests asimilar move towards transdisciplinarity by encouraging research-ers to engage in ‘‘cultural and disciplinary tourism’’ in her con-sideration of respectful ideas about how young people evolveemanating from outside western psychology:

As feminists and child-rights activists have rightly pointed out (Jackson1993), it would be ironic indeed if we dispensed with the notion of the indi-vidual as cultural baggage just at the very moment that women and childrenwere beginning to acquire some hard-won rights . . .we should recognizethe tactical character of our engagement . . .via rights approaches and workalongside this towards formulating more genuinely interpersonal andintersubjective approaches to development and education (14–15).

To close this section, calls for theoretically reconstructing‘‘children’s rights’’ as ‘‘human rights’’ have been reviewed (see alsoFreeman 2002, 346–349), and debates about ‘‘universalized’’ ontol-ogies of rights and childhood are mostly bracketed as a result.Consequently, how to understand and disseminate new rights-based citizenship knowledge within any educational system, orwithin various political and cultural settings, is foregrounded. Thismacrosystemic analysis is quite congruent with arguments fromLenzer (2002), Lindgren Alves (2000), Moss and Petrie (2002,166–171), Allan and I’Anson (2004), and Giroux and Searls Giroux(2004, 102, 114, 120), as well as sociologists Turner (1993),Verschraegen (2002), and O’Byrne (2003). It seems reasonable thento posit new human rights theories are emerging through the childrights discourse unpredictably, yet quite similar to the nonlinear,rhizomatic observations of diverse theorists (Allan and I’Anson2004; Holmes and Gastaldo 2004; Prout 2005). From most accountswithin research and policy literature, it is also clear that few haveactually heeded Jenks’s (2000) invitation by going ‘‘back to thephenomenon’’—in this case back to UN sites—to better understand



implications for citizenship educators that underlie the CRC (seeJohn 2003 for an exception). To address this gap, the final sectiondraws upon a reanalysis of key informant interview texts obtainedat UN policy sites in New York and Geneva during my 2002 to 2005social policy doctoral study (Mitchell 2005a,b).

CRITICAL LESSONS FROM EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

This section highlights three themes that emerged during atwo-year, grounded theory study of the CRC in Scottish andCanadian educational settings. In addition, a transdisciplinary edu-cative model was developed during the analysis and disseminationof findings and is re-presented with permission (Mitchell 2005b,325). The following interview excerpts analyze key informantsattending UN human rights monitoring sessions in Geneva andNew York, as well as from Canadian and Scottish educational,governmental, and nongovernmental sources. Finally, young peo-ple’s views from across these same sites are included.

Role of Educators

A Canadian CRC curriculum developer and researcher discussedher previous findings. ‘‘I heard children were far too young inprimary grades, and that these ideas were too abstract. Of coursethey were thinking from an adult perspective.’’ A senior highschool student from British Columbia reported how she hadlearned about the Convention from her mother, and then took thisknowledge to her instructors. ‘‘Not in any of my classes. No, andnot by any of my teachers. I took the initiative to do a workshopon human rights in my high school in Career and Personal Planningso I could get credit for it. That is all the child rights education Iever received.’’ A second senior high school student from the sameCanadian city concurred with his peer:

I learned ‘‘zero.’’ We never even covered the Canadian Charter or theUniversal Declaration. It’s hard to say why it isn’t in schools. It’s like thejoy of learning is beat out of you in your school years rather than encouraged.I think the whole area of empowerment in schools needs to be changed.

In contrast, a Scottish CRC researcher and postsecondaryeducator looking into rights-based participation within local

54 R. C. Mitchell


schools argued: ‘‘It’s not just a neutral experience – it changes thevery nature of professional practice such that what it is to be anadult, and a child, are being re-negotiated!’’ In addition, the Deanof Education from the University of Edinburgh acknowledged: ‘‘Iam interested in how children’s rights are translated into actualpractice Period 1 on Monday. Our Education for Citizenship frame-work is proposing schools introduce the CRC into that curriculum.’’

Role of Governmental and Nongovernmental Actors

Commenting on provincial implementation of CRC Article 42, theAlberta Child and Youth Advocate offered insight into the lack ofparticipation rights for young people in state care during theirdrafting of new legislation in 2002:

That’s an interesting question . . . . From a policy perspective, I don’t thinkthat it shows up at all . . . . Right now the Child Welfare Act is undergoing areview. And I am aware there are some discussions about specificallymentioning ‘‘child rights’’ and perhaps even articulating what this meansin legislation. Now do I think that will happen? No . . .There isn’t anythingthat the government has done or children’s services has done to identifysomething called ‘‘children’s rights’’ because that isn’t a very popular thingto do in this province.

In a similar reflection on Article 42 and the obligation to discussbasic knowledge of the treaty, the former British Columbia DeputyChild and Youth Advocate echoed his colleague’s viewpoint:

I don’t think the Convention lives very well here in British Columbia . . . asfar as government officials, there’s really no focus on the CRC here . . . I saythis carefully and with good intentions not wanting to slam the NGOs but Ithink there’s been a real failure both in the government and with thenon-governmental organizations in BC to make this thing live . . .The viewsof children and youth? Other than the Advocate’s Office, there hasn’t beena coordinated champion here.

A (now former) Canadian Senator in Ottawa offered her reflec-tions on the participation of young people and the partisan politicsthat enter within the nation’s educational systems that are run byofficials within the ten provinces and three territories:

The issue . . . is jurisdiction in the Canadian context and the provinces haveabsolute jurisdiction over education. The only role the federal governmentcan play is to provide supporting materials . . .Article 42 can’t be



implemented directly . . . from a federal point of view there’s nothing wecan do. You know about the UNICEF and Elections Canada decision tohave an election on children’s rights. The Reform Party went back to theirridings and addressed all the School Boards that said they would have theelection and put pressure on them. Many didn’t because of thesearguments.

Again in sharp contrast, a nongovernmental representative inScotland discussed how both their history and culture have inter-sected to propel the debate for citizenship education forward forchildren and young people:

It’s always rights and responsibilities. But what babies have responsibilities?Tell me. Dirty babies have the same rights as clean babies! Bad kids havethe same rights as good kids! If you start making conditions and say thatyou only have rights if you’re a nice kid . . . . Our stance would be childrenhave rights. That’s it! They may learn about them better if you put them intoa context that appreciates others’ rights. The reality is that you still have yourrights anyway.

Role of UN Reporting and Monitoring

The chair of the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child spokeof innovative pedagogical approaches towards rights-based power-sharing the Committee had encountered during their review ofhundreds of domestic reports under Article 44:

In terms of the best kinds of schools, there are many good examples but onethat stands out is the early learning centres in the north of Italy [ReggioEmilia]. They have innovative and very democratic styles of teaching, andof simply being with even very young learners . . .part of this new kind ofrights culture also has to do with sharing power or perhaps losing a certainlevel of control, at least some of the control you were used to as a teacher.

During participant observations at the 2002 UN Special Sessionfor Children, a participant in the ten-year drafting process of thetreaty by an ad hoc group of nongovernmental representativesand UN diplomats was interviewed by me. This key informant pro-vided archival documents that recalled the negotiations leading toexact wording for CRC Article 42:

It was 1987 and the NGO Ad Hoc Group suggested we have a proposalabout the implementation of the CRC . . .Article 42 was then called 21-tare

56 R. C. Mitchell


but they re-numbered everything at the Second Reading . . .Article 42 didnot have the word ‘‘appropriate’’ in the First Reading and the word[now] appears something like 45 times in the Convention . . . It seemed thatwould be something you could measure if you were measuring the extentto which a country was living up to its obligations . . .

. . .What’s so significant is that it comes from NGOs . . . considering that theCommittee on the Rights of the Child make such an issue of this . . .BUTyou need to know the echo of that Article, if you are making the ‘‘principlesand provisions’’ known. The opposite to that is Article 44 and making thereports widely available to the public . . . between the two it’s like a see-saw[or teeter-totter].

These observations from a member of the treaty drafting groupwere authoritative, and her recollection of the ten-year long nego-tiating process at the UN became a significant finding from thestudy—one that also facilitated theory development. She arguedthat the relationship between basic educational knowledge obligedwithin Article 42 and the periodic domestic reports occurring underArticle 44, offers a minimal approach to compliance. In addition,she recalled that Article 42 is inherently capable of measurementby individuals and governmental representatives alike. After exten-sive coding and analyzing of themes from the study, the followingheuristic model was developed taking into account both the report-ing and measuring ‘‘balance’’ she describes. Although the modelappears basic in that it provides only fundamental knowledge forstudents at any level, it implicitly includes the CRC’s four coreprinciples—missing from many Canadian citizenship and humanrights discourses to date. These same principles are at the heart ofArticle 42 dissemination, and the model further highlights theongoing CRC reporting obligations under Article 44—that is, reportsbeing prepared by Canadian federal government and provincial andterritorial counterparts at the time of this writing (Figure 1).

The dynamic process represented within this transdisciplinaryheuristic model offers pedagogues a balance between a minimalistapproach to human rights education that uses the treaty’s ‘‘principlesandprovisions’’ inArticle 42, and the important new information con-tained within ongoing domestic reporting processes under Article 44.Conceptually and politically, however, these systemic events restupon a fulcrum of interpersonal, local, national, and internationalpower relations (seeMitchell 2005b, 325 reprintedwith permission; alsoMitchell 2007a,b; Moore and Mitchell 2008, 2009).



CONCLUSIONS

I presented theoretical and empirical arguments that children’srights must be better understood as human rights, and the contro-versy surrounding inadequate Canadian efforts to inform children,young people, and adults has provided the entry point into a newaspect of citizenship education. While many U.K. and Europeannations have considered the CRC within various pedagogicalapproaches to citizenship (see particularly Institute for Citizenship2003), in Canada the debate has stagnated. Consequently few chil-dren or adults are receiving any level of education regarding thetreaty’s principles and provisions in direct violation of both the let-ter and intent of the Convention (Senate of Canada 2007).

Furthermore, the CRC may be better understood as a rhizomaticexpression of diversity within an increasingly discrete internationaldiscourse on children’s human rights within law, education, andpolitics. To support this argument, references from contemporaryliterature and a secondary analysis of qualitative findings from acomparative policy study in rights education were discussed(Mitchell 2005a,b). Based upon evidence from these interview texts,and the overarching analytical and interpretive themes from thestudy, a transdisciplinary model has been reconsidered in orderto address gaps in these discourses and to introduce basic humanrights knowledge across all educational levels. Finally, as a contri-bution towards the UN’s Decade for Human Rights Education(1995–2004; United Nations General Assembly Resolution 49=1841994), which passed by unheralded in many states, the model isposited as having portability across disciplines and cultural and

Figure 1. Transdisciplinary CRC model.

58 R. C. Mitchell


political sites. This position seems reasonable due to the globalizedconstructs within the model taken directly from CRC texts, theautopoietic (self-replicating) framework offered by national reportson the treaty, and the efforts of many nations to disseminate newcitizenship knowledge through implementing the CRC in practice.

NOTE

1. I gratefully acknowledge the respectful feedback and attenton to detail frommanaging editor Susan Searls Giroux, reviewers of this journal, and journalcopyeditiors for an earlier draft of this article.

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who’s afraid now? reconstructing canadian citizenship education through transdisciplinarity

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