ABSTRACT
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a framework for conceptualizing human rights in relation to the unique developmental needs and capacities of children. We employ the 3 Ps framing to consider three broad rights categories: protection, provision, and participation. While views of children’s rights have evolved considerably since the late nineteenth century, conceptualizing children as rights-bearers entitled to participation in society represents the most recent development in the historical landscape of children’s rights. Thus, we focus on the socially and contextually embedded nature of children’s rights experiences by considering the socialization experiences that promote the moral development of social responsibility as catalyzed by the opportunity to participate in society. We conceptualize social responsibility as a facet of moral development that functions as a link between the right to participate in society and moral development, which ultimately contributes to children’s well-being and broader societal well-being. We begin by linking children’s human rights to moral development, then provide an overview of children’s active participation in society as illustrated by examples of children’s involvement in social justice movements (e.g., racial justice). We end by considering future research that intersects children’s moral development with their agentic participation in society.
