Children's Rights : an Analysis of Ontario's Kindergarten Curricula from 1998 to 2016

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989) states that all children are rights holders and these rights should be a priority for the State. Canada ratified the UNCRC in 1991; however, compared to other wealthy countries Canada is still lagging behind regarding children’s rights education (Jerome et al., 2015). This study examined how and to what extent children’s rights have been integrated in the Ontario’s kindergarten curricula from 1998 to 2016, through a discursive analytical approach. The documents (1998, 2006, 2010/2011, 2016), were analyzed using the UNCRC General Principles (Articles 2, 3, 6 and 12) (United Nations, 2005). The findings showed that the integration of children’s rights in the curricula has increased since 1998; however, children’s rights are not thoroughly incorporated in the documents.