Abstract
In this study, 519 early adolescents rated the importance and existence of 40 rights, based on the themes of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in their homes and public schools. From a cross-national perspective, Australian students were similar to stu-dents from a majority of countries in the priority they gave to survival and development, health and medical care and emotional and family support in the home setting. These rights were also ranked highly in terms of their existence in Australian homes. Rights emerging as most important in the school arena focused on quality of education, educational opportunities, quality of social relationships and autonomy in choosing social relationships. Australian students were most like students from Denmark, Belgium and the USSR in their stronger emphasis on the school peer context as an arena in which to establish rights to freedom of association and expression. Discrepancies between ratings of importance and ratings of existence revealed that for between 25 percent and 28 percent of the sample, students felt that their rights to advocacy, privacy and fair treatment received little or no support in schools. The results of the survey make a significant contribution to understanding the views of Australian adolescents as a first step to their inclusion, in a consultative manner, in educational programs regarding rights for children. They may also aid school psychologists and teachers in their endeavours to identify ways in which school environments can be enhanced to support the psychological, as well as educational, growth of students.