The Political Construction of Children’s Rights in Education–A Comparative Analysis of Sweden and New Zealand

Abstract

The study presented in this paper examines and compares how issues of children’s rights in education are constructed in policy in two nations: Sweden and New Zealand. Claims for human rights for children originate from international human rights agreements, but have to be incorporated into national policy. The central interest of the analysis is the process of the contextualisation of human rights, in which rights are transformed from their expressions at the universal level to concrete interpretations in a particular policy of an individual state. Similarities and differences in the political constructions of children’s rights in education in the two nations are identified, and their expression in policy is discussed as embedded in national particularity.