Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The research project was designed to examine young people's own views about how they are treated as pupils, and about their actual and potential contribution to their school, as moral agents in their own right. The aims of this survey include: to increase public understanding about participation rights (participation rights concern young people's own contributions to their communities and their share in making personal decisions); to discover and report school students' views and experiences about practical aspects of their participation rights; to show how theories about children's rights can influence education policy and practice positively and negatively.

Main Topics:

The pupils' questionnaire covers: hobbies; school life; attitude to school's resources; attitude to school dress codes and other school rules; perceptions of teachers' attitudes to pupils; choice of schools; religious freedom in school; attitudes to curriculum subjects such as current affairs, children's rights, world history, environmental conservation; right to attend and arrange peaceful meetings in school; right to privacy and respect; right to fair discipline; right to be kept safe from harm; working together for rights and how these are shared in schools; school councils; preservation of pupils' human rights in school; pupils' expectations of school; awareness of UN <i>Convention on the Rights of the Child</i> (1989). The dataset also includes the responses of 58 teachers to questions about their awareness of and views about the UN Convention, and demographic details of their schools.

The sample was partly random and partly selected - 80% of the schools were chosen to ensure a fairl

Postal survey