The Landon Pearson Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights at Carleton
University invites applications for the 2022-23 Gerison and Francine Lansdown Undergraduate
and Graduate Student Essay Prizes in Children’s Rights ($500 each)
Students studying Children’s Rights are invited to submit an essay for consideration. Prize winners will
be invited to make a brief presentation at the Child Rights Academic Network Conference (April 2023).
The prize-winning essays will also be invited to submit for review and publication in the Canadian
Journal of Children’s Rights, youth and graduate student sections; the issue is released in November
2023.
These awards, created in 2021 and named in honour of international children’s rights advocate Gerison
Lansdown and her daughter Francine, encourage research into children’s rights advocacy and issues
using a rights-based approach.
Eligibility
-Applicants must be registered full-time in an undergraduate or graduate program at a Canadian
university, or have graduated from such a program less than one year ago.
-Applicants must agree to briefly present their essays (live or virtually) at the Child Rights Academic
Network Conference 2023 conference in Ottawa, Ontario April, 2023.
Judging criteria
-Essays that explicitly and critically engage with children’s rights and children’s rights advocacy issues
-Essays that use a rights-based approach to the topic, with references to relevant literature
-Essays that go beyond description and show evidence of original critical analysis.
Applications:
-Complete essays should be sent to the Landon Pearson Centre Director Virginia Caputo
(virginia_caputo@carleton.ca ) for consideration by our selection panel by December 31, 2022.
-Must not exceed 10 double spaced pages in length (approximately 3000 words) (plus notes, references
and cover page)
-Can be submitted in either English or French
-Must include a cover page (name, department and name of university at which the candidate is
registered and their current year in the program)