The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong) ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1994. Participation rights under Article 12 of the CRC states that State Parties should ensure that children’s views are given due weight on matters affecting them (Article 12 CRC, 1989). Pupils’ voice is often attributed to this Article and has consequently become a growing area of concern in schools (Lundy, 2007). Despite the international call for increased pupil voice in schools, there is currently a dearth of literature in regard to children’s voice in primary schools in Hong Kong (Forde et al., 2018). The Concluding Observations by the Committee states that there is a lack of “effective and broad mechanisms…to promote and facilitate respect for the views of all children and children’s participation in all matters affecting them” in Hong Kong (CRC, 2013). As a Chinese Confucian society, Hong Kong places respect to teachers at the highest priority and children are expected to not challenge or question them (Ng, 1996, 2001). Therefore, this research aims to understand the extent of which children believe they have participation rights in a faith school in Hong Kong and whether school leaders and parents understand children’s rights. Departing from an interpretivist perspective, this research draws on 12 semi-structured one-on-one interviews to better understand the participants’ lived experiences and views of children’s voice at school. The initial findings suggest that tenants and values stemming from Confucianism play a significant role as to why children’s voice is often not encouraged within the school as academic success is prioritized. However, students demonstrate forms of agency by articulating their personal views and voice. Ultimately, this demonstrates conflict between the children’s prescribed behaviours stemming from Confucian culture and their own autonomous thinking.

1. The role of children’s rights in a
Hong Kong faith school – a case
study
Denise Wu
UCL Institute of Education
Department of Learning and Leadership
MA Primary Education (Policy and Practice)
IDSP Departmental
London 19 June 2019

2. Background Information
• ”3 Ps”: provision, protection, and
participation rights (Hammarberg,
1990)
• Art. 12 of the UNCRC:
“States Parties shall assure to the child
who is capable of forming his or her
own views the right to express those
views freely in all matters affecting the
child, the views of the child being given
due weight in accordance with the age
and maturity of the child.”
Research Gap:
• Chinese Confucian society  respect
to teachers at the highest priority 
children expected not to
challenge/question

3. Research Questions
1. To what extent do children believe they have participation rights in
a faith school in Hong Kong?
2. How do school leaders and parents understand ‘children’s rights’?

4. Theoretical tools
• Confucianism
• Incompetent Child and Best Interest of the Child
(Mayall, 2000).
• Relational dominance (Ho, 1995): dutiful and
obedient to teachers’ instructions
• Social actors
• Self-expression and free-will--> children “as
social actors” with independent voice in terms of
participation (Vandenbroeck and Bie, 2006)

5. Methods
• Qualitative Research
• Case-study
• 12 semi-structured Skype
interviews
• 5 students
• 3 parents
• 4 school leaders
• Thematic analysis

6. Initial Findings
• Children, parents, and teachers demonstrated
awareness of children’s rights
• Children believe they ‘have’ voice and power
but some students ‘demonstrate’ their voice
and power more based on their roles and
positions (being a prefect, performing better
academically)

7. Initial Findings
• Paradoxical nature of voice and power: structure vs
agency
• “…[T]he teacher usually asks better students, [or
students who behave well] in the class, so I get to
make decisions most of the time.” – Yvonne
• “…[T]here’s this moment where our English teacher,
Teacher B, asked us what she could do to make us stop
forgetting to hand in our homework, so I just stood up
and said stop giving us homework cause it was kind of
getting on my nerves since this is one person’s
problem. Why are you punishing all 30 of us?” - Ella

8. References
Hammarberg, T., 1990. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child-And How to Make It Work. Human Rights
Quarterly, 12(1), p.97.
Ho, D.Y.F., 1995. Selfhood and Identity in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism: Contrasts With the
West. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 25(2), pp.115–139.
Lundy, L., 2007. ‘Voice’ is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), pp.927–942.
Mayall, 2000. The sociology of childhood in relation to children's rights. The International Journal of Children's Rights,
8(3), pp.243–259.
National Center On Education and the Economy. N.d. Hong Kong: Learning Systems [online] Available from:
http://ncee.org/what-we-do/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-countries/hong-kong-
overview/hong-kong-instructional-systems/ [Accessed 4 June 2019]
Sheng, X., 2018. Confucian home education in China. Educational Review, pp.1–18.
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic
reports of China (including Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions), adopted by the Committee at its sixty-
fourth session (16 September – 4 October 2013), 4 October 2013, CRC/C/CHN/CO/3-4, available at:
https://www.refworld.org/docid/5263de9d4.html [accessed June 2019]
Vandenbroeck, Michel & Bie, Maria Bouverne-De, 2006. Children's Agency and Educational Norms: A Tensed
Negotiation. Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, 13(1), pp.127–143.