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Social Sciences
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Childhood and Rights in a Global World
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Childhood and Rights in a Global World

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760). This special issue belongs to the section "Childhood and Youth Studies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 7087

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ana Castro Zubizarreta

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Guest Editor
Department of Education, University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain
Interests: childhood; rights; global citizenship education; policies for the protection, provision and participation of children in educational contexts
Prof. Dr. Roberto Sanz Ponce

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of General Didactics, Theory of Education and Technological Innovation, Catholic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Interests: childhood; rights; education for global citizenship; policies for the protection; provision and participation of children in educational contexts; teacher training and teaching competencies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Today, we face urgent global challenges (climate and health crises, poverty, exclusion, armed conflicts, etc.) that affect all citizens, and children in particular. From this perspective, children are often perceived as the future; however, adults tend to silence them, make them invisible and undervalue them.

More than thirty years after the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it has become necessary to equip children with rights and capacities in order to defend them as citizens.

Having rights and being able to exercise them do not always go hand in hand, and in this sense, the right to high-quality education that promotes listening, participation, spaces for equal access and opportunities continues to be an inalienable challenge at a global level. To this end, the protection, participation and provision of services for children should be essential, as the progress of nations and human civilization lie with children.

The aim of this Special Issue is to create a space to share knowledge, research and educational experiences that promote children's rights. This research that promotes children having participatory experiences that facilitate ethical, responsible, respectful and committed citizenship.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, systematic literature reviews and educational papers with interesting and inspiring contributions. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

- Children's rights;

- High-quality education;

- Education for global citizenship;

- Recognition of children as citizens;

- Policies for the protection, provision, care and participation of children;

- Educational innovation and improvement through child participation;

- Educational research techniques to involve children. Children as co-researchers.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ana Castro Zubizarreta
Prof. Dr. Roberto Sanz Ponce
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • childhood
  • children's rights
  • educational innovation
  • participation
  • global citizenship

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 1656 KiB  
Article
Are Our Schools Carrying Out Effective Environmental Education? In-Service and Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions
by Eugenio Salvador Ivorra-Catalá, María Catret-Mascarell and Elena Moreno-Gálvez
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(8), 425; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080425 - 14 Aug 2024
Viewed by 408
Abstract
Faced with the environmental challenges facing today’s society, it is necessary to form critical, conscious, committed and competent citizens that can take action. Children represent, at the same time, the need for care and hope for a better and more sustainable world. The [...] Read more.
Faced with the environmental challenges facing today’s society, it is necessary to form critical, conscious, committed and competent citizens that can take action. Children represent, at the same time, the need for care and hope for a better and more sustainable world. The school is the ideal place to carry out this training. All citizens pass through school for many years and many hours a day. Everything in the school is designed to teach people how to learn and live together: the people who work there, the infrastructure, the rules, the resources and the opportunities to share daily actions. But are schools prepared to carry out effective environmental education? Several reasons have been pointed out as potential explanations of the lack of awareness and sustainable behavior observed in a large part of the population. Surely, one of the most important is the lack of adequate organization, which leads to a lack of long-term planning, of people in charge, or of an evaluation and communication of the results. In this paper, we present a study on environmental education carried out in a group of Early Childhood and Elementary education schools using structured interviews conducted by students of the Catholic University of Valencia San Vicente Mártir. The results obtained are congruent with the contributions made by previous studies, which have highlighted the lack of coherence between training, attitudes and teaching practices. The conclusions drawn seem to indicate that, although practicing teachers are aware of the importance of the subject, the presence of environmental policies in the school and the implementation of good educational action are far from being considered optimal, given the current need for them. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Childhood and Rights in a Global World)
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12 pages, 278 KiB  
Article
The Teachability of Global Citizenship to Children through Empirical Environmental Education: Reflections from a Horticultural Project in a Spanish School
by Isabel Pérez-Ortega and Iñigo González-Fuente
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(4), 225; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13040225 - 20 Apr 2024
Viewed by 892
Abstract
In a context defined by the internationalisation of educational policies and the supranational nature of school programmes, we highlight the desirability of promoting local strategies for teaching environmental sustainability in order to contribute to the formation of global citizenship in children. Based on [...] Read more.
In a context defined by the internationalisation of educational policies and the supranational nature of school programmes, we highlight the desirability of promoting local strategies for teaching environmental sustainability in order to contribute to the formation of global citizenship in children. Based on the experience of a horticultural curricular project in a school in northern Spain, the aim of this article is to reflect on the need for socio-educational communities to transform the objectives of environmental education into tools with which children can co-responsibly build connections to modify or enrich their everyday concepts of caring for the planet. To do this, semiotic analysis of different official school documents is used as a key methodology. Our findings invite consideration of the fact that pedagogies designed to train children in global citizenship competencies should not be limited to the classroom or to reproducing the proposals of institutional documents. Rather, they should be based on the prior knowledge and experiences of all members of the community, above all, of the children. From this perspective, the promotion of empirical learning situations is essential for the acquisition of meaningful and appropriate environmental contents, in the sense that they allow children, as future global citizens, to recognise the ethical repercussions of their own actions and decisions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Childhood and Rights in a Global World)
17 pages, 379 KiB  
Article
Towards Quality Education: An Entrepreneurship Education Program for the Improvement of Self-Efficacy and Personal Initiative of Adolescents
by Ángela Martín-Gutiérrez, Elisabet Montoro-Fernández and Ana Dominguez-Quintero
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13010023 - 26 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1388
Abstract
In recent decades, youth unemployment has been the focus of attention of international and community bodies in the area of social rights. Specifically, there is a need to promote attitudes and skills to access employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. The measures implemented have [...] Read more.
In recent decades, youth unemployment has been the focus of attention of international and community bodies in the area of social rights. Specifically, there is a need to promote attitudes and skills to access employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. The measures implemented have not been effective. In 2023, Spain had the highest youth unemployment rate in the European Union (29.6%). An improvement in the level and quality of education and training of young people would reduce their level of unemployment. Entrepreneurship education is, therefore, a necessary value in the society of the 21st century since it is a tool for the development and growth of the younger population. In the entrepreneurship education model proposed in this study for adolescents, we focus on the capacities of self-efficacy and personal initiative as precursors of entrepreneurial behavior. This paper analyzes the differences between the mean values of the variables before and after the implementation of the educational program and the influence or correlation between the variables. The main results are threefold: (i) the educational program implemented improves the mean values of the two variables analyzed; (ii) self-efficacy exerts a positive or direct influence on personal initiative, and (iii) the educational program improves or reinforces the positive influence of self-efficacy on personal initiative. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Childhood and Rights in a Global World)
18 pages, 370 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Entrepreneurial Potential in the Training of a New Generation of Change Agents in Spain
by Antonio Ramón Cárdenas-Gutiérrez, Ana María Domínguez-Quintero and Antonio Bernal-Guerrero
Soc. Sci. 2023, 12(12), 680; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12120680 - 10 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1335
Abstract
The development of entrepreneurial potential in the training of school-age pupils is relevant for carrying out projects of an innovative and transformative nature. Entrepreneurial training is enacted through Spanish educational regulations, in relation to the development of the key entrepreneurial competence. Thus, a [...] Read more.
The development of entrepreneurial potential in the training of school-age pupils is relevant for carrying out projects of an innovative and transformative nature. Entrepreneurial training is enacted through Spanish educational regulations, in relation to the development of the key entrepreneurial competence. Thus, a training programme in entrepreneurial potential for school-age students, who are considered as agents of change, was evaluated under the approach of “enterprise education pedagogy”. For this purpose, an experimental research study, pre-test and post-test, with a control and experimental group, was designed. The sample consisted of 1036 participants from eight autonomous communities in Spain. The data analysis was carried out by means of a t-test to compare the mean before and after the application of the programme on the total number of participants, as well as on the subgroups with and without entrepreneurial intentions. The results show that the PEIEO programme had a positive effect on entrepreneurial potential. The experimental group, compared to the control group, significantly increased their total score in the t-test, as well as for each dimension of entrepreneurial potential. Similarly, the participants considered to have entrepreneurial intentions further increased their entrepreneurial potential compared to the group considered to have no entrepreneurial intentions. Consequently, the results indicate that entrepreneurship education, in a holistic sense, has a relevant impact on entrepreneurial potential in a programme aimed at training agents of change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Childhood and Rights in a Global World)

Review

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24 pages, 1507 KiB  
Review
A Scoping Review of Children, Empowerment, and Smartphone Technology Regarding Social Construction Theory with the Aim of Increasing Self-Direction in Democracies
by Carol Nash
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(4), 196; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13040196 - 31 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1234
Abstract
Children are Dependents in a version of social construction theory regarding their inability to self-direct their behavior in democratic society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed [...] Read more.
Children are Dependents in a version of social construction theory regarding their inability to self-direct their behavior in democratic society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies necessitates substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within a democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering social construction theory—as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants—is the focus of a scoping review conducted on “children, empowerment, smartphones” of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants, and as such, they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Childhood and Rights in a Global World)
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Other

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13 pages, 498 KiB  
Systematic Review
Childhood, Education, and Citizen Participation: A Systematic Review
by Arminda Álamo-Bolaños, Itahisa Mulero-Henríquez and Leticia Morata Sampaio
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(8), 399; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080399 - 29 Jul 2024
Viewed by 630
Abstract
Citizen participation among children and adolescents is key for the development of society. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the legal and ethical recognition of public, education, and social policies for children is vital for ensuring an active and [...] Read more.
Citizen participation among children and adolescents is key for the development of society. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the legal and ethical recognition of public, education, and social policies for children is vital for ensuring an active and critical society. The aim of this research paper is to analyse the characteristics and challenges of citizen participation during childhood as an educational process. The methodology employed was a systematic review carried out using the WOS, SCOPUS, and ERIC databases, taking into account the PRISMAS 2020 protocol. The results show that the incorporation of a culture of participation in children and adolescents will guarantee the persistence of democratic systems, although there are still challenges to overcome. The conclusions suggest that it is crucial that educational institutions, families, and society as a whole commit to promoting the philosophy of citizen participation at an early age in formal and non-formal educational contexts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Childhood and Rights in a Global World)
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