Promoting Children’s Rights Through School Leadership: Implications for School Psychologists

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has delineated numerous principles that serve to promote the welfare of children, and many of these principles have implications for educational policies and practices. School psychologists can advance children’s rights by working with administrators to encourage leadership styles and educational practices that promote these rights. School psychologists can also take administrative positions in schools, working directly to exercise these leadership styles and emphasize children’s rights as a priority. This chapter illustrates how school psychologists can have an impact on school culture by highlighting participatory leadership styles that can be used to transform education. Included is a discussion of how program-centered and consultee-centered administrative consultation can be used by school psychologists to facilitate the efforts of administrators to promote children’s rights. The chapter identifies four themes related to children’s rights that have particularly important implications for transforming education. These include (1) child-centered, nondiscriminatory education; (2) childcare and protection; (3) culture, leisure, and play; and (4) respect for children’s views. The chapter provides two examples of the school psychologist’s role in promoting children’s rights. One illustrates strategies for responding to the theme of childcare and protection, and the other illustrates strategies related to the theme of child-centered, nondiscriminatory education by focusing on child-centered approaches to school discipline. Recommendations are made about the roles that school psychologists can play to promote children’s rights as practitioners, administrators, and researchers.