3. Child Rights

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About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about child rights and the emergence of a 'child rights regime' at the international level, focusing in particular on: (i) the increased visibility of childhood poverty in 19th-century Britain, and the steps taken by the government to combat it; (ii) the gradual erosion in this period of the idea that children were the responsibility of the family alone, and the extension of the right of the state to enter into family life in cases of severe negligence; (iii) the extent to which the protection of child rights was driven in the first instance by philanthropists, e.g. Thomas John Barnardo, rather than the state; (iv) the extent to which the protection of child rights in Britain did not extend to Britain's overseas territories and other colonial possessions; and (v) the emergence of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, and the two reasons why it has had such a big impact in the last thirty years.

Course

In this course, Professor Karen Wells (Birkbeck, University of London) explores the sociology of childhood. In the first lecture, we think about the idea is childhood is socially constructed. In the second lecture, we consider the idea that children have agency. In the third lecture, we think about child rights and the emergence of a 'child rights regime'. Next, we think about the inequalities that shape childhood. In the fifth lecture, we think about different theories of identity emerging from psychology and childhood studies. In the sixth lecture, we turn to think about school and work as domains of childhood. In the seventh and final lecture, we think about the juvenile justice system.

Lecturer

Professor Karen Wells is Professor of Human Geography at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research is focused on childhood studies, particularly the formation of childhood and the impact of inequality on children’s lives. She is author of The Visual Cultures of Childhood (2020), Childhood Studies: Making Young Subjects (2017), and Childhood in Global Perspective (2014).