Syrian Children's Right to Education and Healthcare Amid the Crisis

This study pursued three main objectives: (1) to construct and standardize two scales measuring children’s rights to education and healthcare in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 28 and 24); (2) to estimate the perceptual gap between children and adults regarding the causes and effects of deprivation and the proposed solutions; and (3) to examine the impact of selected demographic variables on these perceptions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed. The sample consisted of 1,636 participants in Damascus (children, parents, school principals, and healthcare providers). Two scales were developed, and their psychometric properties were verified. Factor analysis revealed a clear three-factor structure for each scale (causes, effects, solutions) with excellent fit indices (CFI = 0.999 for the education scale; CFI = 0.995 for the healthcare scale). The findings showed a consistent perceptual gap: children rated the causes, effects, and solutions as occurring “often,” whereas adults tended to rate them as occurring “sometimes.” Children’s ratings were highly homogeneous, and almost no statistically significant differences emerged across demographic variables, except for the effect of school principals’ educational qualifications on their estimates of educational solutions (T = -2.003, p < 0.05). The results point to collective trauma and similar levels of suffering among Syrian children across demographic groups, as well as a pronounced child–adult perceptual divide that underscores the need to recognize children as experts on their own realities and to design comprehensive, child-rights-based interventions that ensure their active participation. Children's rights; Syrian crisis; education in emergencies; healthcare; collective trauma.