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

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.

There are numerous beneficiaries from this research:

The general public: hearing news about the development and findings of this project will prompt public debate concerning the role of law in society and the notion of children as being empowered by law; so contributing to the development of a vibrant and fair society.

Project participants: it is anticipated that in the short term, the interest of children and adults who engage in the research project and their school communities will be directly stimulated by participation in the project and by its findings. Longer term, it is hoped that participating in the project this will generate and perpetuate thinking about the issues raised in the research among the school communities involved.

Policymakers: at UK level (the Office of the Children's Commissioner), at EU Level (the Council of Europe) and at international level (the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child) will be interested in the findings of this research, as it will provide findings based on scientifically robust data, which will indicate how successful these institutions have been in implementing and publicising to children and adults the provisions of the UNCRC.

Third sector organisations such as the National Children's Bureau, the NSPCC and UNICEF may be able to use the results of this research to lobby for changes to policy and legislation relating to children. They may be interested, for example, in the findings in relation to children's perception of the 'grey areas' of law. Awareness of gaps in children's knowledge or common misconceptions may feed into the research or information strategies of these organisations in the months that follow the publication of its results. Such organisations may, of course, wish to access the data generated by the project for the conduct of their own, related research. The research findings will also provide useful information to charity Law for Life; founders the new centre for public legal education in the UK. The findings in relation to parental involvement and impact on the children's decision-making will be of particular interest to them, since much of their work involves developing 'legal literacy' among adults through community based projects.

Education Sector: it is anticipated that the findings of this research will prompt debate concerning the current practice of teaching citizenship in key stages 3 and 4, but not to younger children. The study includes the gathering of data that demonstrates how children, and children working with significant adults, think about and generate legally-relevant decisions, in the context of their every-day lives. It is specifically intended that these findings can provide the basis for establishing an educational resource for children, with the gaming element of the research providing one potential model for this.

The PI and the co-investigator come from two distinct fields; law and computer science, and both will learn much about the other's area of expertise in the course of the project. Both seek to develop their ability to work with innovative and creative methodologies. The PI seeks to draw on the co-investigator's technical knowledge in assessing the remit of possible future developments in using digital resources for data capture. Since the PI and co-investigator will be working with a number of other parties: research partners/consultants, research assistants, children, parents/carers and teachers it is anticipated that both will develop team-working, people-management, communication and influencing skills in the course of the research, as well as time-management and financial-management skills; all of which could apply in other employment sectors.