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

该项目旨在了解儿童在日常生活中对法律作为一种赋权力量的理解程度。有许多法律和国际条约与儿童有关，涉及儿童在家庭、学校或公共场所所处的大多数环境。这些法律规定并不断影响儿童的行为，以及儿童和周围成人的行为。研究人员希望了解儿童对这些法律的了解程度，以及他们认为自己受到这些法律的保护和支持。这项研究的一个不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。研究人员不会直接采访儿童并询问他们这些问题，而是要求儿童协商各种虚拟挑战，这些挑战是在游戏格式中设计的，并在平板设备上提供给儿童。孩子们将在学校玩其中一个游戏，另一个在家里，与他们的父母或照顾者。这将使研究人员能够发现儿童在决策中表现出法律的能力的程度，以及发现他们的成年照顾者的观点在多大程度上影响这一点。更一般地说，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儿童对法律的理解水平。由于其丰富的文化多样性，莱斯特提供了这种研究的理想环境。研究人员打算对来自莱斯特多所小学的大约1000名7-11岁的儿童进行研究。儿童对游戏的形式和设计的看法在游戏的开发阶段至关重要。这些儿童中的一小部分将从项目一开始就参与其中，并将有助于完善和完成研究的这一方面和许多其他方面。研究结果将以学术期刊文章和报告的形式发表，这将对负责执行和向儿童和成人宣传《联合国儿童权利公约》条款的决策者产生重大影响。研究人员希望，他们的工作将刺激话语和进一步的研究在这一领域，它可能会为法律的和教育改革在英国和其他地方的发展提供基础。

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.