Alien helps "Children's lives" primary schools law research

A cartoon alien is part of new project that uses a digital game aims to find out what primary school children know and think about the law and their rights.

The project, "Law in Children’s Lives", has been devised by the University of Leicester’s School of Law to gain insights into the understanding of children aged eight to 11, attending three Leicestershire primary schools.

The game, "Adventures with Lex", involves a cartoon alien called Lex coming to Earth and asking the children to show him their lives. It takes place in the familiar worlds of a school, a park, a shop, and a friend’s house.

The children are shown several scenarios, including a woman hitting her child in public, a friend being left home alone, and a dilapidated playground. They are asked questions such as "Who is responsible?", "Is this OK?" or "What can you do?"

The alien, Lex, then asks the children to explain the reasoning behind their choices out loud, which is recorded by the tablet.

led by Dr Dawn WatkinsDr Watkins, project lead said: “We had to find a research method that made sense to the children, and that gave us insights into their own individual perspectives and decision-making.

“The everyday situations featured in the game include: having a say in and out of school; gender equality; consumer rights; being bullied; smacking; being left home alone; and being injured or having possessions damaged by another person.

“Although the subject is serious, it’s been a huge amount of fun for the children who take part. It’s really brilliant to see a whole class of children absorbed in their games and chatting away to Lex the alien.”

The project came about following a pilot study by Dr Watkins, where she took undergraduate Law students into St Peter’s Primary Academy in Market Bosworth to carry out a mock trial of the fairy tale character Jack, from the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.

She found that the children tended to have a negative and fearful view of the law, rather than seeing it as something that was there to help them.

Dr Elee Kirk, Research Associate in the School of Law, said: “Children’s negative view of law may not initially be seen as a problem, as most children have support from their parents. But we need to remember the children who cannot depend on parents for guidance, or who have parents who abuse their authority, for example the case of five-year-old Daniel Pelka, whose parents starved him and beat him to death.

“It is vital that these children understand that the law is there to protect them. On paper, it looks like children are very well protected by the law. This year saw the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by the UK since 1991. However, in reality, many of these rights tend not to materialise. One of the most important of children’s rights is the right to be asked about things that are important in their lives, and that’s what we’re doing here.”

Headteacher of St Peter’s Primary Academy in Market Bosworth, Ralph Wood, said of the project: “The Law in Children's Lives project has provided a superb opportunity for pupils at our academy to reflect upon their legal rights and responsibilities via a game that is both innovative and fun. The Rule of Law is fundamental to British values and to positive social, moral and cultural attitudes, so we’re very grateful to the University of Leicester’s Law Department for working with our children to develop a tablet game that takes abstract legal concepts and makes them clear and relevant to young learners in our digital age.”

The project has received positive feedback from the children who have played the game including, “It was fun because you got to give your own opinion”, and “I liked that you could talk to the tablet and I can help Lex with the law.”

The team hope to have the results of the project in early 2016 and are looking to push out a second phase of the project to work with smaller groups of especially vulnerable children.

Dr Watkins added: “At the end of this project we will have gathered children’s views on issues such as the amount of power they have in school, who is legally allowed to hit children, at what age a child should be left alone at home and at what age a child can look after another child. Drawing directly on this information, we will be able to influence government policy in these and other areas.”

Dr Watkins added: “In the longer term, we plan to produce an educational game that can be downloaded by children to help them learn about where they stand with regard to the law and their rights.”

The team worked with gaming company Enigma, to produce ‘Adventures with Lex’.

The project website is www.le.ac.uk/licl