In their recent book, ‘Empowering Children: Children's Rights Education as a Pathway to Citizenship’, R. Brian Howe and Katherine Covell argue that children’s rights education in schools should be promoted as a way of recognising children as citizens. The book traces the rise of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a groundbreaking document for children because it legally commits states to protecting and promoting children’s rights. Howe and Covell argue that educating children on their rights not only fulfils these international obligations, but also promotes children’s citizenship. They then assess existing approaches to citizenship education in industrialized countries, find them wanting and propose children’s rights curricula as a way forward. The book concludes with some challenges to implementation of children’s rights education and suggested ways to resolve these.

As Howe and Covell rightly point out, too little of the literature and policy discussions on citizenship consider children. According to the authors, this is because children are perceived as ‘not-yets’ and hence only future citizens rather than as full human beings with rights to citizenship in the present. Empowering Children thus makes an important contribution to thinking about children, education and citizenship. It also provides a strong argument for children’s rights education as a way to empower children as active citizens, based on a perceived causal link between knowledge about rights and the ability to defend these rights: "Education is required to empower citizens so that they may take steps to protect and secure their rights. Through human rights education, citizens are enabled to begin the process of acquiring the knowledge and critical awareness necessary to understand and question oppression and the denial of their rights." (p. 33) However, while making a clear case for children’s rights education as a necessary condition for empowerment, it is not clear whether this is sufficient in and of itself. Unequal power relations and structural constraints may prevent children from realizing their rights, whether they are aware of them or not.

The book could also have been improved by building on the authors’ progressive argument of children as citizens to question the depoliticization of rights and citizenship. Instead, Howe and Covell argue, "A number of children's rights initiatives have shown that teaching children about their rights does not lead to anarchy in the family or school, but has highly beneficial effects." (p. 6) This statement draws on two ‘neutral’ arguments to suggest that child rights education will not undermine the existing order and will be useful to society, rather than promoting their central claim that child rights education is about empowering children. Similarly, the authors argue that rights are necessary as a “protective shield for the defenceless" (p. 8) and a "means for building human dignity or a sense of self-esteem" (p. 33). The portrayal of children as vulnerable, helpless victims with low self-esteem in need of rights may undermine Howe and Covell’s stated view of children as active citizens who inherently have inalienable rights as human beings.

This highlights a central tension in the book between a radical political agenda and the need to convince conservative educational establishments in industrialized countries about the need for child rights education in schools. This tension is played out in chapters covering the problems of current citizenship curricula, the benefits of incorporating child rights education within these curricula and implementation issues. While providing a substantive critique of current citizenship education in schools in industrialized countries, this argument could have been strengthened by greater emphasis on power issues in terms of control over content and transmission of knowledge within schools. For example, Howe and Covell recognize that training for citizenship was one of main reasons for the creation of modern state-sponsored schools systems and compulsory education in industrialized countries, but do not fully explore how curricula, including child rights curricula, will inevitably be shaped by dominant political and social interests. Moreover, they do not question in detail whether schools are the appropriate places for children’s rights education, given the fact that educational institutions in industrialized countries embody and enforce compulsory education and hence children’s obligation to claim their right to education. As a result, their book largely focuses on ways to improve citizenship education by including a child rights component, rather than fundamentally challenging the marginalization of children within educational and political systems.

Empowering Children raises some important issues related to children’s citizenship and makes a strong case for children’s rights education, but only partially fulfils the aims of its title. While children’s rights education is an important step forward, real empowerment also requires addressing power structures that continue to prevent children from being active citizens in their own right.

* 'Empowering Children: Children's Rights Education as a Pathway to Citizenship' (ISBN 0-8020-3857-3) may be ordered from the University of Toronto Press, 5201 Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ontario M3H 5T8; [email protected]