Socio-Legal Approach to Children's Rights

Course in the Module "New Issues in Socio-Legal Studies" (3 ECTS)

The course introduces the basic concepts of the sociology of children's rights by providing a historical and diachronic overview of the debate on children's rights and the empirical research developed on this topic. It proposes a focus on the implementation processes of children's rights, starting from a socio-legal analysis of children's participation in different contexts.

Objectives
The course is designed for students with different backgrounds and levels of professional experience in children's rights issues (including sociologists of law, lawyers, psychologists, social workers, academics and journalists). The participation of students with different backgrounds and career levels helps foster exchanges at both theoretical and practical levels.

The overall objectives of the Sociology of Children's Rights course are:
• To allow participants to acquire extensive and specialized knowledge on children's rights including their theoretical dimensions, methodological approaches and empirical findings by introducing different sociological research concepts, approaches, methods and experiences.
• To deepen understanding of the implementation and monitoring of children's rights processes, with a particular focus on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• To promote critical thinking concerning the effective practical application of the concepts and principles underlying the Convention on the Children's Rights.

Methodology

 Topics:
• New social studies of childhood (from classical theories of socialization and development to the new sociology of childhood)
• The sociology of Children’s Rights (between children’s studies and children’s rights movement)
• The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the concept of “vulnerability” (is The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child an effective instrument to evaluate the laws, policies and practices, which affect children? Some research experiences)
• Children and Young people’s participation in Decision-Making (the Lundy model of child participation)
• Children’s Rights- Based Research approaches