The Child as Citizen: Implications for the Science and
Practice of Child Development
In International
Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD)
2001 Newsletter,
Number 2, Serial No. 38
Mary Carlson
e-mail: mary_carlson@hms.harvard.edu
and
Felton Earls
e-mail: felton_earls@hms.harvard.edu
In the closing decade of the Twentieth century, a new era in
the history of childhood was ushered in by adoption of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In the intervening years, the CRC
became the most widely accepted human rights treaty in history, as every UN
member (except the US and Somalia) ratified this treaty and in doing so
recognized children as deserving of citizenship and of fundamental human
rights. This essay explores a philosophical basis of what citizenship does for children
in the context of modern democratic societies. This exploration focuses, in particular, on the contributions of two major
contemporary social theorists whose writings provide some of the most penetrating
critiques and original contributions to theories of democracy, social rights,
and distributive justice - Amartya Sen’s capability approach and Jurgen Habermas’
communicative ethics. Our challenge has been to synthesize these new ethical
and social theories into our research programs. Both the rhetoric of rights and
the exercise of citizenship represent essential new ways to frame the science
and practice of child development and to promote the well-being of children. We
begin with a brief orientation to the Convention. The main part of the article
reviews concepts related to distributive justice and democratic discourse as
they relate to the theories of capability and communicative ethics. We conclude
with statements on democracy and on children from
The UN Convention on
the Rights of the Child
Although children are the last major population group to be integrated into the reach of the international human rights movement of the 20th century, the CRC is considered the most progressive and comprehensive human rights treaty ever adopted. The Convention consists of a Preamble, followed by 40 specific articles addressing different domains that can be roughly divided into the protection, provision, and participation rights. Another 13 articles provide administrative details for implementation and reporting of State Parties. The CRC seeks to promote and protect these rights by specifying minimum standards for the survival, growth, and protection of children. Governments that have ratified the CRC are obliged to take all necessary steps to assure the availability of resources required to meet these standards through the modification of laws, policies, and practices, in accordance with the CRC articles. The overall intent of the CRC is to raise children to full membership in the community (as a person rather than a possession), while protecting their dignity. Within the range of interpretations of the CRC, from an emphasis on child welfare to concern with children’s agency, we chose to focus on the latter, with special interest in Article 12: Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
At this stage in the evolution of the rights framework, we are most interested in procedures and processes through which children are defined and engaged as citizens. In particular, we are interested in the role for children in the deliberative aspects of democracy (Earls & Carlson, in press), rather than in an electoral role (Peterson, 1993). This position recognizes the CRC as a necessary, but not sufficient, platform for the transformation of childhood and that child researchers, service providers and advocates must work with children to develop both legitimate and effective ways of implementation of the many domains of the Convention.
The Child as a
Deliberative Citizen
How can we begin to envisage what child citizenship looks
like in practice? Considerable debate has occurred around which adults are
deserving of a political role in democratic societies, ranging from the view
that the average citizen is unworthy and incapable of rational public discourse
(Schumpter, 1943; Dahl, 1966), to a model of
broad-based citizenship in which democratic participation is for all and viewed
as a learning process (Pateman, 1970). If the debate
continues around the personal characteristics that render adult citizens
deserving of an active role in their democratic societies, then how is “the
child who is capable of forming his or her own views” to be evaluated in order
to specify their legitimate role at different ages and levels of maturity? We
hold that ordinary children and adults are capable and deserving of active and
deliberative roles in our democratic societies and base this view both on our
theoretical explorations and our deliberative engagements of children of
different ages in diverse settings, from
Deliberative democracy is a contemporary enrichment of the belief that democratic legitimacy emerges from the aspirations and public deliberations of citizens. Democratic effectiveness is based on genuine participation of citizens in the discourse over public policies and their implementation (Knight & Johnson, 1997)). A normative account of democratic legitimacy evokes the ideals of rational legislation, participatory politics, and civic self-government, all based on the philosophical principle of respect for persons, grounded in a Kantian view of people as ends, not means (Chambers, 1995). Furthermore, the legitimacy of laws and public institutions should be based on the belief that there exists a form of autonomous consent that is reasoned and deliberative. However, the philosophers, economists, and political scientists who fashion these ideas rarely think of children. The assumption that children are too naive and lacking in good judgment to participate in such lofty endeavors must be critically evaluated both by social theorists and developmental scientists. Well-informed and intentioned adults must give serious consideration to the indicators of children’s capacities for deliberative engagement in the context of appropriate social opportunities (from the earliest of ages) to participate in democratic activities that promote and refine these capacities. The next two sections on capability and communicative ethics provide some fundamental principles for the pursuit of truly inclusive democracies that include citizens of all ages in the public deliberation.
Amartya Sen and Capability
Ethics
Sen’s capability ethic entails both a process for achieving, and a strategy for evaluating, well-being. His theory has the potential to integrate two important aspects of child development that address the capacity for participation and deliberation: agency and resources/opportunities. In our previous work, we adapted this approach to illustrate how the extreme conditions of institutionalized infants and street children violate their rights to develop agency by exposure to profoundly depriving and violent contexts (Earls & Carlson, 1999; Carlson & Earls, 1997, 2000). This approach seems conceptually superior to the enumeration of risk and protective factors that characterize the current language of drug, teen pregnancy, and violence prevention programs (Earls & Carlson, 1995). In recent articles, we outline the importance of a social ecological framework for the study of child wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of a capability approach in conjunction with recognition of the rights of the child as specified by the CRC (Carlson & Earls, 2000; Earls & Carlson, 2001).
There are three important elements of the capability approach (Sen, 1999). The first is the definition of valued functionings that are constituents of the quality of life. These functionings vary from such elementary activities as being well-nourished or avoiding morbidity to more complex achievements as engagement in one’s communityor attaining self-respect (all domains of the CRC, as well). The second element is the "capability set", represented as a space of different material or social resources that enable the expression of specific functionings. A favorite example is that of possessing the functioning to ride a bicycle, but requiring a bicycle, a road, and suitable weather as components of a capability set required to engage in that functioning. A third element is possession of the freedom to achieve well-being as reflected in available capability sets. Sen makes the distinction between well-being freedom and well-being achievement, noting that to be free to make a choice does not necessitate that the person will decide to actualize wellbeing (i.e., achievement). The opportunity implied by abroad range of resources represents a situation of liberty (i.e., freedom) in which an individual can choose (or not choose) to engage or participate. Valued functionings are selected into capability sets as a function of the opportunities and resources available in the environment and circumstances surrounding the child. The measurable outcome of the available choices and actualized engagement is the space of well-being achievement.
One can measure equality in any of these three spaces (functionings, capability sets, or well-being freedom and well-being achievement). Sen stresses (1992) that the equality measured in these different spaces have vastly different meanings and implications for redress. What does this mean for developmental scientists interested in children’s development in the context of international law and the ethical framework provided by the CRC? To us it means that it is crucial to study the functionings important in the attainment and practice of citizenship that are central to the development of children’s agency. These are represented in the emotions and motivations that regulate behavior. Within the multiple contexts of neighborhoods, families, schools, and peers the child seeks predictability, control, and security (Carlson & Earls, 2000; Earls & Carlson, 2001, in press). The contexts represent capability sets. Well-being freedom is manifest in the extent to which the child is valued and provided the space and support to have her opinions expressed, and her choices and actions guided.
Jurgen Habermas and
Communicative Action
In his Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas (1984, 1987) proposes a clear set of procedures, which are rational, communicative, universal, and empirically sound, and upon which the conditions for discourse and discourse ethics are established. Conditions for what is termed the ideal speech situation requires intersubjective symmetry, assuring that all potential participants have the same opportunities: 1) to employ communicative speech, e.g., to address, reply, question, answer; 2) to make claims and criticize, e.g., to put forward recommendations, explanations, and justifications, to establish, reject; 3) to employ representative speech acts, e.g., to express views, feelings, wishes; and 4) to employ regulative speech acts, e.g., to command, resist, allow, forbid, explain. Habermas makes the important distinction between rational discourse, characterized by communication and persuasion, and strategic/instrumental actions, characterized by coercion or threat.
To address the concern of whether children have the capacities to be equals in an ideal speech situation, a standard of equality in deliberative capacities is critical to democratic practices. Procedural equality can be seen simply as the equal opportunity to speak and be heard. However we agree with those who demand more of equality—to assure that every deliberator has the confidence of a minimal threshold of communicative effectiveness in deliberative encounters (Bohman, 1996,1997). This is where the challenge lies; to define deliberative capability as a developmentally graded
set of skills that are afforded equal respect at all stages. We have formulated a deliberative capability set for children that consists of deliberative functionings, capability sets, and well-being achievements that reflect development in the areas of linguistics, cognition, and motivation. Accordingly, in our research, we have composed groups of adolescents and adults in extended discourse sessions about the nature and content of the research. The results point to the potential for epistemic benefits in the generation of knowledge and personal benefits for the maturation of child and adult participants (Earls & Carlson, in press).
Implications for
Science and Practice
For reasons similar to those that led us to incorporate the capability approach into our theoretical and empirical approaches to child development, an interest in children’s deliberative capabilities at different ages requires methodological and substantive evaluation of the child’s level of verbal, cognitive, and social capacities to claim true equality (Earls & Carlson, in press). These theoretical concerns raise several substantive and practical concerns for researchers and practitioners. How do we measure equality among children and between adults and children? Once established, how do we determine what difference the achievement of equality makes to quality of life for the “give serious consideration to children’s capacities for deliberate engagement” individual child as well as for groups of children? Does the process of engagement increase the child’s sense of mastery in specific ways related to communication? Does this generalize to influence one’s overall sense of well-being? Does this achievement protect the child from risks of parental abuse or neglect, pathological behaviors, or academic failure? And finally, does the achievement of the rights of citizenship confer obligations?
To experience what it means to work in a nation in which the
CRC and participatory democracy are taken seriously, we have maintained
interaction with children and colleagues in
Although individuals may have different interests, tastes, talents, and incomes, democracy means that everyone enjoys the same right to participate in making decisions about the common affairs of a society. Government by the people is based on free formation of opinion. This means that a public sphere must exist for exchange of information and for debate and criticism to take place. The citizens must also have the opportunity to participate actively in the shaping of their own futures and that of society. Citizenship is based on a combination of rights and obligations; as a result, democracy imposes requirements of tolerance and respect for differences of opinion (Petersson, et al., 1999).
This statement emphasizes (as does Sen) that citizens in a democratic society vary by taste, talent, incomes, etc., but that all citizens should have equal rights in the decisionmaking of their democratic societies. It also emphasizes exchange of information in a public space, debate, criticism, tolerance, and respect for the opinions of others (as does Habermas). This simple statement provides both the rationale for participatory and deliberative democracy and many of the elements of the very active debate about various forms of contemporary democracy. A second document we cite on early childhood education and democracy decisively articulates the ideas and principles that we have discussed to this point:
In
Over the last decade, there has been a high level of commitment fostered by the CRC. It is now time to deepen the foundation of theory that gave rise to this extraordinary document and put in place a set of strategies that insure that the principles will guide science and practice of child development.
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