Brief report: British adolescents’ views about the rights of asylum-seeking children

The present study examined 60 (30 early-to-middle adolescents and 30 late adolescents) British adolescents’ understanding of the rights of asylum-seeker children. Participants completed semi-structured interviews designed to assess judgments and evaluations of hypothetical asylum-seeker childrenʹs nurturance and self-determination rights in conflict with the practices of authority. Findings indicated that participants were more likely to endorse asylum-seeker childrenʹs nurturance rights over their self-determination rights. Reasoning about both types of rights was multifaceted and focused on moral, social–conventional and psychological considerations. In addition, significant differences were found between males and females with regard to both endorsement and reasoning. The limitations of the study are discussed and future research is considered.