Students' perceptions of their rights in Denmark

Research on the perceptions of 12-15 year old Danish students regarding the importance and existence of children's rights in homes and schools was con ducted during 1993. The population sampled, from two Danish municipalities, is sufficiently representative of the Danish youth population of this age at that period to give somewhat general value to findings. Overall, the res ults indicate that Danish children judge the importance of rights in both t he home and school and the level of existence or support for those rights i n the home to be high, and in all these cases their ratings average above t hose of the average for the composite of the other countries involved in si milar research. However, the existence of rights in the school on the avera ge was judged not only to be below the level of importance given to them, t he usual finding across countries, but also to generally be below the avera ge level of existence found for the all-countries composite, a surprising f inding. Specific rights topics of concern to Danish children are identified and preliminary interpretations are provided. An historical context for De nmark and its schools is presented to bring additional meaning to findings.