TY - JOUR T1 - Children's Rights and Participation in Schools: Exploring the Awareness Level and Views of Nigerian Primary School Children TT - Children's Rights and Participation in Schools: Exploring the Awareness Level and Views of Nigerian Primary School Children AU - Ejieh, Michael U. C. AU - Akinola, Oluwatoyin B. PY - 2009 DA - March JF - İlköğretim Online JO - İOO PB - Sinan OLKUN WT - DergiPark SN - 1305-3515 SP - 176 EP - 182 VL - 8 IS - 1 LA - tr AB - - N2 - The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which guarantees childrencertain rights including the right to be heard in matters that affect them was ratified by Nigeria in1991.After the ratification and the submission of her initial progress report, the country has domesticatedthe Convention by passing a law on the rights of the child. This exploratory study was designed to find outthe extent to which primary school pupils in Ile – Ife town were aware of their rights and to explore theirviews about the exercise of these rights. Data for the study were gathered by the means of semi-structuredoral interviews held with 144 pupils in four primary schools in the town. Data analysis showed that thechildren had very limited awareness of their rights; about three quarters of the children were not willing toexercise their rights mainly because they felt that there was no need for children’s rights and also becauseof the cultural norms of the Nigerian society. It was concluded that the objectives of the UN Convention onChildren’s Rights were yet to be achieved in the schools. CR - Archard, D. (1993). Children: Rights and Childhood. London: Routledge Inc. CR - Cook, P., Blanchet-Cohen, N., & Hart, S. (2004). Children as Partners: Child Participation Promoting Social Change. Paper prepared for Canadian International Development Agency. Victoria, BC.: International institute for Child Rights and Development CR - Denscombe, M. (1998) The Good Research Guide for Small Scale Social Research Projects. Buckingham: Open University Press. CR - HeadsUp Resource for Teachers (2004). Pupil Participation Nov.- Dec. CR - Howe, R. B. & Covell, K (2000). Schools and the participation rights of the child. Education and Law Journal, 10, 107 - 123 CR - Jacomy, S. & Stevens, A. (2005) Rights of the Child in Nigeria: Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by Nigeria. A report prepared for the Committee on the Rights of the Child 38th Session. Geneva. CR - Johnny, L. (2005) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A rationale for implementing participatory rights in shhools. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 40, May, pp. 1 – 10. CR - Jonyiene, Z. & Samuelsson, I.(1999). Swedish and Lithuanian students’ experience of their rights. Child and Youth Care Forum, 28, 371 – 391. CR - Melton, G. B. & Limber, S. P. (1992). What children’s rights mean to children. In M. D. A. Freeman & P. Veerman (eds) Ideologies of Children’s Rights. Drodrecht Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. CR - Selwyn, N. (2003). Pupils’ perception of classroom and whole-school democracy. Research in Education, 70, 86-89. CR - Sheldon, J. A. (1935). Pupil participation in school control. School Review, 43, (3) 189- 197. CR - Siar, C. E. (2007) Pupil participation in decision making. Retrieved May 31 2008 from http://66.102.9.104/search?q==cache:IFzaO917q CR - Stemler, S. (2001) An overview of content analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7, 17. CR - Tang, K. (2003). Implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: the Canadian experience. International Social work, 46, 277-288 CR - UNICEF India (n.d.). Child participation. Retrieved January 12 2008 from http://www.unicef.org/India/children-2740.htm UR - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ilkonline/issue//107059 L1 - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/90899 ER -