Increasing awareness of children’s developmental needs
and rights has led to a global move toward giving children and adolescents a
greater degree of autonomy in the decisions affecting their own lives. The present
article presents two studies examining the role of culture and religion in twelve-year-old
children’s perceptions of their rights across three cultures. The first
study showed that U.S. and Swiss children advocated for more self-determination
rights than Chinese-Malaysian children; U.S. and Chinese-Malaysian children
advocated for more nurturance rights than Swiss children. Within the Chinese-Malaysian
sample, Buddhist children were more likely to advocate for self-determination
rights as compared to Christian children. Using a revised Children’s Rights
Interview (rCRI), the second study showed that, on average U.S. and Chinese-Malaysian
children were more likely to advocate for self-determination rights than nurturance
rights. However, there were no significant differences among the two cultural
groups in terms of the overall responses. The results of the studies are discussed
in terms of the cultural orientation and constructivist frameworks.