Where do I stand? Assessing children's understanding of law as an empowering force in their lives.

该项目旨在找出儿童在多大程度上将法律理解为他们日常生活中的一种赋权力量。有许多与儿童有关的法律和国际条约，在大多数情况下，儿童在家里、学校或公共场所都有自己的身影。这些法律制约并不断影响儿童的行为，以及他们周围儿童和成年人的行为。研究人员希望了解儿童在多大程度上了解这些法律，并认为自己受到这些法律的保护和支持。这项研究的一个不同寻常和创新的特点是使用数字游戏作为收集研究数据的手段。研究人员不会采访这些孩子，直接询问他们这些问题，而是让孩子们协商各种虚拟挑战，这些挑战是在游戏形式下设计的，并通过平板电脑向儿童提供。孩子们将在学校玩其中一个游戏，在家里和他们的父母或照顾者一起玩另一个游戏。这将使研究人员能够找出孩子在多大程度上表现出法律上的决策能力，以及他们成年照顾者的观点在多大程度上影响了这一点。更广泛地说，研究人员希望调查社会经济背景等因素在多大程度上影响孩子对法律的理解水平。由于其丰富的文化多样性，莱斯特为这类研究提供了理想的环境。研究人员打算与来自莱斯特多所小学的大约1000名7-11岁的儿童合作。在游戏开发阶段，孩子们对游戏形式和设计的看法将是至关重要的。这些儿童中的一小部分将从项目开始就参与其中，并将帮助完善和完成这项研究以及许多其他方面的研究。研究结果将以学术期刊文章和报告的形式撰写，这将对负责实施和向儿童和成人宣传《联合国儿童权利公约》条款的政策制定者产生重大影响。研究人员希望他们的工作将促进这一领域的讨论和进一步研究，并可能为英国和其他地方的法律和教育改革的发展提供基础。

This project seeks to find out how far children understand law as an empowering force in their day to day lives. There are many laws and international treaties that relate to children and in most of the contexts in which children find themselves; at home, at school or in public spaces. And these laws frame and constantly influence children's behaviour, and the behaviour of the children and adults around them. Researchers hope to gain an understanding of how far children are aware of these laws and perceive themselves to be protected and bolstered by them. An unusual and innovative feature of this study is the use of digital gaming as a means of gathering research data. Rather than interviewing the children and asking them directly about these issues, researchers will ask children to negotiate a variety of virtual challenges that are designed within a gaming format and made available to the children on tablet devices. Children will play one of these games in school, and another at home, with their parent or carer. This will enable researchers to find out the extent to which children demonstrate legal competence in their decision-making, as well as finding out how far the views of their adult carers serve to influence this. More generally, researchers hope to investigate how far factors such as socio-economic background influence the child's level of understanding in the law. Because of its rich cultural diversity, Leicester provides the ideal setting for a study of this kind. Researchers intend to work with approximately 1000 children aged 7-11 from a number of primary schools in Leicester. Children's views on the format and design of the games will be crucial in the games' development stage. A small number of these children will be involved from the outset of the project and will help to refine and finalise this and many other aspects of the research. The research findings will be written up in the form of academic journal articles and a report that will have significant implications for policy-makers charged with implementing and publicising to children and adults the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Researchers hope that their work will stimulate discourse and further research in this area and that it may serve to provide the foundations for the development of legal and educational reform in the UK and elsewhere.