Schools of Thought in Children’s Rights

Abstract

A consensus on the extent, priorities or even precise content of children’s rights is not readily available: children’s rights are a morally sensitive domain having to deal with strong, and often competing, normative and ideological perspectives. Working in such a context is particularly challenging, not only for policy makers and activists but also for researchers (Reynolds et al., 2006). This chapter aims to reflect on the differences amongst conceptions of children’s rights by proposing a heuristic structure which presents the various approaches as ‘schools of thought’ in children’s rights. After we question the supposed generalized consensus on children’s rights, we will discuss four dimensions or key issues on which opinions diverge and that are pivotal for understanding variations in approaches to children’s rights. These dimensions are the childhood image, the debate on competence, the rights of children and the difference dilemma. As a next step, and according to positions taken on the key issues, we suggest differentiating approaches to children’s rights in the form of four schools of thought: Paternalism, Liberalism, Welfare and Emancipation. In conclusion, we will point to some possible implications of this proposed framework for child research.