Childrens Right to Silence and Non-Participation in Education: Redefining Student Voice

This insightful book re-examines the concept of student voice through an exploration of childrens implicit rights to silence and non-participation. By considering what remains unspoken but is voiced through silence, this book theorises silence through the lens of power.

Responding to calls for more critical approaches to childrens participation under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this unique exposition of silence ventures beyond traditional notions of voice as a defining term for justice and participation, and traditional understandings of silence as powerlessness. Instead, this book presents young peoples uses and understandings of silence at school as an instrument of power. Based on empirical research, the book reconceptualises childrens participation rights through silence.

Addressing an important gap in the literature on student voice and childrens participation, this book is a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of childrens human rights, childhood studies, and educational philosophy.