Critical Children's Rights Studies: A Research Companion

The field of children’s rights studies is well established and largely dominated by a top-down approach that considers these rights as objective standards requiring implementation in practice or policy. This book argues for a critical perspective which views the area as contested terrain with conflicting normative foundations and traditions. The collection brings together established and rising scholars whose work has been central to not only challenging mainstream children’s rights discourses but also provides alternative pathways to conceptualizing children’s rights. It moves beyond critiques of these dominant discourses and sets out the emerging paradigm of Critical Children’s Rights Studies drawing on contexts in both the Global North and Global South. It proposes new pathways and subjects these to scrutiny, illuminating the importance of contextual situatedness and acknowledging the need to consider researchers’ own positionality when outlining their stance on children’s rights.

Containing both empirical and theoretical scholarship, the book will be an essential resource for students, academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the multidisciplinary areas of childhood studies, children’s rights studies and international human rights.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Valeria Llobet holds a PhD in social psychology from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). She is a Professor in the School of Humanities, Universidad de San Martín (Argentina) and a researcher at CONICET (National Council of Research). Her work focuses on children’s rights, gender and class inequalities.

Didier Reynaert is Lecturer in Social Work and Senior Researcher at the EQUALITY//ResearchCollective of HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts, School of Social Welfare (Belgium). His expertise lies in the field of social work theory, social justice and human rights and Critical Children's Rights Studies.

Afua Twum-Danso Imoh is Associate Professor in Global Childhoods and Welfare at the University of Bristol (UK). Her work explores the intersections between children’s rights and cultural norms in Ghana. She is an editor for the Palgrave Macmillan Study of Childhood and Youth Series and serves on the editorial boards of several journals.

Wouter Vandenhole is Full Professor of Human Rights and Children’s Rights and directs the Law and Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp’s (Belgium) law faculty. His research interests include children’s rights, economic, social and cultural rights, the relationship between human rights law and sustainable development, and thicker human rights accountability.