Brief Report: British Adolescents' Views About the Rights of Asylum-Seeking Children

• NCJ Number: 219892
• Journal: Journal of Adolescence Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Dated: August 2007 Pages: 687-693
• Author(s): Martin D. Ruck; Harriet R. Tenenbaum; Jennie Sines
• Date Published: August 2007
• Length: 7 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

A sample of 60 British adolescents (30 early-to-middle adolescents and 30 late adolescents) were questioned about their understanding of the rights of asylum-seeking children, given the growing political and public concern about the asylum-seeking and refugee population in the United Kingdom.

Abstract

The study found that both older and younger adolescents favored asylum-seeker children's nurturance rights (right to receive government assistance for basic needs) over their self-determination rights (right to challenge government policy and practices with which they disagree). The findings also suggest that, in accord with social cognitive domain theory, British adolescents use distinct forms of reasoning (e.g., moral, social-conventional, and psychological) when providing justifications regarding asylum-seeker children's nurturance and self-determination rights. The adolescents were more likely to use moral-based reasoning (e.g., fairness and empathy) when considering asylum-seeker children's nurturance rights. On the other hand, both social-conventional (e.g., maintaining group functioning) and psychological reasoning (e.g., personal choice) were used when assessing the self-determination rights of asylum-seeker children. Females were more willing to endorse children's self-determination rights than were males. The 60 adolescents lived in the London metropolitan area. The study presented them individually with four hypothetical vignettes, each involving a 12-year-old asylum-seeker matched to the participant's gender. Two of the vignettes described a situation in which a child asylum-seeker wished to exercise a self-determination right possibly in conflict with authority or government practices. The other vignettes depicted situations in which a child asylum-seeker wanted a nurturance right fulfilled that was possibly in conflict with government practices. 22 references