A review of children’s rights literature since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

Children’s rights have become a significant field of study during the past decades, largely due to the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989. Today scholarly work on children’s rights is almost inconceivable without considering the Convention as the bearer of the children’s rights debate. The goal of this article is to critically explore academic work on the UNCRC. By means of a discourse analysis of international literature, academic discourse on children’s rights is mapped. Three themes are identified that are predominantly present in academic work on the UNCRC: (1) autonomy and participation rights as the new norm in child rights practice an policy; (2) children’s rights versus parental rights and (3) the global children’s rights industry. That these three themes distinguish contemporary scholarly work on the UNCRC might not be a coincidence, analyzed from the process of “educationalisation”, characterizing childhood in western societies since the nineteenth century. The perspective of educationalisation presents a contemporary research agenda for children’s rights for the coming decades.Children’s rights have become a significant field of study during the past decades, largely due to the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989. Today scholarly work on children’s rights is almost inconceivable without considering the Convention as the bearer of the children’s rights debate. The goal of this article is to critically explore academic work on the UNCRC. By means of a discourse analysis of international literature, academic discourse on children’s rights is mapped. Three themes are identified that are predominantly present in academic work on the UNCRC: (1) autonomy and participation rights as the new norm in child rights practice an policy; (2) children’s rights versus parental rights and (3) the global children’s rights industry. That these three themes distinguish contemporary scholarly work on the UNCRC might not be a coincidence, analyzed from the process of “educationalisation”, characterizing childhood in western societies since the nineteenth century. The perspective of educationalisation presents a contemporary research agenda for children’s rights for the coming decades.A