| Abstract: | Increasing attention is being paid to children's rights issues in policy and law. However, there is little recent research examining adults’ attitudes toward children's rights. This is an important question given that children's rights are unlikely to be fulfilled if they are not supported by the adults involved in their lives. Attitudes toward nurturance and self‐determination rights were examined in 461 undergraduate students from the United States and Canada. Students were asked to think of a “target child” (8, 10, 12, 14, or 16 years) when answering the questions. Students strongly endorsed nurturance rights, but were generally unsupportive of children's rights to self‐determination. Canadians showed greater support for self‐determination than did Americans. In both groups, endorsement increased significantly with the age of the target child. Commenting on factors they considered when responding to the items, participants perceived children's rights as dependent on personal, interpersonal, and societal factors. |
