Adolescents' Perceptions of Rights as Reflected in Their Views of Citizenship

The UN Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), ratified by the majority of the countries of the world, is an international document that recognizes children and adolescents as worthy of citizenship and human rights. The CRC also attempts to provide a balance between children's nurturance (care and protection) and self‐determination (participation) rights. Although there has been social cognitive research on children's understanding of rights, there has been little research examining adolescents' views of the specific rights they would expect to receive through citizenship. In addition, few studies have examined young people's views of the responsibilities inherent in citizenship. This article investigates adolescents' views of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Three hundred four adolescents, aged 13–18 years, were asked to rate the importance of various rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Findings indicated that adolescents' responses regarding rights reduced to two components, one related to entitlements (nurturance component of the CRC) and the other freedoms (self‐determination/participation component of the CRC). Responsibilities consist of civic‐oriented ones and polity‐oriented responsibilities. Both components of rights (entitlements and freedoms) correlated significantly with civic‐oriented forms of responsibilities; neither form of rights related to polity‐oriented responsibilities. The two components of rights also related to the individual variables of age, parental education, ethnicity, and aspects of political self‐concept. These results demonstrate the importance of research on the development of citizenship and also have implications for implementation of the CRC.