Are we really doomed? Critical pathways for advancing children’s rights through theory and practice

This chapter presents the argument that two factors are particularly obstructive to the flourishing of a more unified and integrated modus operandi for both practitioners and researchers working in the field of children’s rights. First and foremost, I will argue that the limited synchrony in the historical development of theory and practice, with regards to children’s rights, has impacted and limited the opportunities for a meaningful collaboration between practitioners, activists and academics (Leonard, 2016). I will then discuss how the interpretation of children’s rights as a tool to ensure protection, rather than to promote autonomy (Woodhead, 1994), weakens the rights based approach and deprives the concept of right of its essence (Biggeri and Karkara, 2014). In my conclusions, I will argue that the lack of critical revision of theories of childhood is the overarching issue to the advancement of children’s rights.