Childhood and Citizenship

Aims:

1. To stimulate discussion on children's political and social participation
2. To explore how children's activities might change what we mean by 'citizenship'
3. To publicise examples of children's political and social participation

Childhood and Citizenship: Naming the Problem

It is clear that children's access to basic resources, such as food, shelter, health and media, varies between countries, by social class and by gender. But, for all this variation, the world's children have one thing in common:

Nation-States find it either difficult, inconvenient or undesirable to recognise children's right to participate in decision-making concerning their own lives. This is as much problem for representative democracies as it is for other political regimes.

Children are a global political minority.

Childhood and Citizenship: Looking for Solutions

The figure of the 'democratic citizen' is becoming a global gold-standard for the distribution of economic resources and for the social and political distribution of human dignity.

Representative democracies are treated as the leading edge of the global process of enfranchisement. But is 'citizenship' a good enough model for children's enfranchisement ?

Relationships between children and Nation-States are a key site for developing our understanding of global citizenship.

Using the Page

Please email me,  Nick Lee ,with comments/suggestions/new links

Papers

'Changing Citizenship: Room for Children?' (Nick Lee, 2000)

Links

Reviewing the Human: Dignity, Citizenship and Global Community

Children and Transport

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Centre for Europe's Children

Children's House

UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)

Warchild

Children's Legal Centre (UK)

This page maintained by Nick Lee