Children, Discrimination and Rights Education report

This task is largely performed by the Commission’s Strategy and Engagement Team (SET). The work of the SET, including its research projects, is shaped by the Commission’s Strategic Plan (July 2022 – June 2024). This project responds to Objective Four of the Strategic Plan, which states the Commission will “Develop programs that raise awareness of discrimination and promote anti-discrimination for school-aged children by engaging with educational institutions.” The SET’s response to this objective commenced in mid-2022, with a pilot project in collaboration with Edith Cowan University intern Patience Makambwa, that examined children’s knowledge and experience of discrimination and rights education. The project placed children at its centre and, by listening to children about their understanding of these concepts, found the children engaged in the project possessed a reasonable amount of foundational knowledge about the meaning of rights and discrimination and a keen interest in developing their knowledge in ways that were critical, reflective and respectful of people’s lived experience. 
Informed by the findings of the pilot project, this second research stage commenced at the beginning of the 2023 school year. The second stage includes two significant revisions: 1) a revised student questionnaire and 2) the inclusion of input from teachers’. The revised questionnaire examines students’ knowledge and interests more deeply. In relation to teachers, it examines experiences, interests and needs regarding how discrimination and rights function in the curriculum and how teachers manage their teaching of these concepts. 
This report presents, analyses and discusses the students’ and teachers’ ideas and offers key findings useful for informing how the Commission and, potentially, other interested bodies may support teaching and learning about discrimination and rights within the year six curriculum.
The report is divided into three major parts. It begins by outlining the method adopted by the project, including its research design and data collection elements. Next, it analyses and discusses the responses by students and their teachers to the two research questionnaires. Finally, by way of conclusion, it offers the key findings of the research and indicates the significance of these findings in relation to the how the Commission (and other anti-discrimination commissions) may support teaching and learning about discrimination and rights within the year six curriculum.