This book explores the relationship between children and citizenship, analyzing international perspectives on citizenship and human rights and developing new methods for facilitating the recognition of children as participating agents within society.

This book challenges readers to recognise the conditions that underpin popular approaches to children and young people’s participation, as well as the key processes and institutions that have enabled its rise as a global force of social change in new times. The book draws on the vast international literature, as well as interviews with key practitioners, policy-makers, activists, delegates and academics from Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Nicaragua, Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, the United States and Italy to examine the emergence of the young citizen as a key global priority in the work of the UN, NGOs, government and academia. In so doing, the book engages contemporary and interdisciplinary debates around citizenship, rights, childhood and youth to examine the complex conditions through which children and young people are governed and invited to govern themselves. The book argues that much of what is considered ‘children and young people’s participation’ today is part of a wider neoliberal project that emphasises an ideal young citizen who is responsible and rational while simultaneously downplaying the role of systemic inequality and potentially reinforcing rather than overcoming children and young people’s subjugation. Yet the book also moves beyond mere critique and offers suggestive ways to broaden our understanding of children and young people’s participation by drawing on 15 international examples of empirical research from around the world, including the Philippines, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, North America, Finland, South Africa, Australia and Latin America. These examples provoke practitioners, policy-makers and academics to think differently about children and young people and the possibilities for their participatory citizenship beyond that which serves the political agendas of dominant interest groups.

Rethinking the concepts of citizenship and community in relation to young children, this groundbreaking text examines the ways in which indigenous understandings and practices applied in early childhood settings in Australia and New Zealand encourage young children to demonstrate their care and concern for others and so, in turn, perceive themselves as part of a larger community. Young Children’s Community Building in Action acknowledges global variations in the meanings of early childhood education, of citizenship and community building, and challenges widespread invisibility and disregard of Indigenous communities. Through close observation and examination of early years settings in Australia and New Zealand, chapters demonstrate how practices guided by Aboriginal and Māori values support and nurture children’s personal and social development as individuals, and as citizens in a wider community. Exploring what young children’s citizenship learning and action looks like in practice, and how this may vary within and across communities, the book provides a powerful account of effective pedagogical approaches which have been long excluded from mainstream dialogues. Written for researchers and students of early childhood education and care, this book provides insight into what citizenship can be for young children, and how Indigenous cultural values shape ways of knowing, being, doing and relating.

This book presents an integral, cross-cultural reflection on the social reality of children's rights and citizenship, giving an insight into new perspectives on the history and different concepts of children's rights in a contextualized and localized manner.

Offers a more democratic way to think about families, politics, and public life. Public policy often assumes there is one correct way to be a family. Rethinking Sexual Citizenship argues that policies that enforce this idea hurt all of us and harm our democracy. Jyl J. Josephson uses the concept of “sexual citizenship” (a criticism of the assumption that all families have a heterosexual at their center) to show how government policies are made to punish or reward particular groups of people. This analysis applies sexual citizenship not only to policies that impact LGBTQ families, but also to other groups, including young people affected by abstinence-only public policies and single-parent families affected by welfare policy. The book also addresses the idea that the “normal” family in the United States is white. It concludes with a discussion of how scholars and activists can help create a more inclusive democracy by challenging this narrow view of public life.

In Kids Rule! Sarah Banet-Weiser examines the cable network Nickelodeon in order to rethink the relationship between children, media, citizenship, and consumerism. Nickelodeon is arguably the most commercially successful cable network ever. Broadcasting original programs such as Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Rugrats (and producing related movies, Web sites, and merchandise), Nickelodeon has worked aggressively to claim and maintain its position as the preeminent creator and distributor of television programs for America’s young children, tweens, and teens. Banet-Weiser argues that a key to its success is its construction of children as citizens within a commercial context. The network’s self-conscious engagement with kids—its creation of a “Nickelodeon Nation” offering choices and empowerment within a world structured by rigid adult rules—combines an appeal to kids’ formidable purchasing power with assertions of their political and cultural power. Banet-Weiser draws on interviews with nearly fifty children as well as with network professionals; coverage of Nickelodeon in both trade and mass media publications; and analysis of the network’s programs. She provides an overview of the media industry within which Nickelodeon emerged in the early 1980s as well as a detailed investigation of its brand-development strategies. She also explores Nickelodeon’s commitment to “girl power,” its ambivalent stance on multiculturalism and diversity, and its oft-remarked appeal to adult viewers. Banet-Weiser does not condemn commercial culture nor dismiss the opportunities for community and belonging it can facilitate. Rather she contends that in the contemporary media environment, the discourses of political citizenship and commercial citizenship so thoroughly inform one another that they must be analyzed in tandem. Together they play a fundamental role in structuring children’s interactions with television.

Introduction: children, young people and their changing status in society / Cyndy Hawkins -- Diverse consumers / Catherine Gripton and Val Hall -- Children as consumers of early years services / Victoria Brown, Moira Moran and Annie Woods -- Children and young people as health consumers / Sharon Vesty and Lorna Wardle -- Environmental consumers / Cyndy Hawkins -- Brand consumers / Cyndy Hawkins -- Consumption, identity and young people / Mark Weinstein -- Young people as consumers : the construction of vulnerability amongst consumers of higher education / Phil Mignot -- Young people and democratic citizenship / Jason Wood -- Rethinking children as consumers / edited by Cyndy Hawkins

Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement provides a primer for exploring hard questions about how young people understand, experience and enact their citizenship in uncertain times and about their senses of membership and belonging. It examines how familiar modes of exclusion are compounded by punitive youth policies in ways that are concealed by neoliberal discourses. It considers the role of key institutions in constructing young people's citizenship and looks at the ways in which some young people are opting out of established enactments of citizenship while creating new ones. Critically reflecting on recent scholarly interest in the geographical, relational, affective and temporal dimensions of young people's experiences of citizenship, it also reinvigorates the discussion about citizenship rights and entitlements, and what these might mean for young people. The book draws on global research and theories of citizenship but has a particular focus on Australia, which provides a unique example of a country that has fared well economically yet is mimicking the austerity measures of the United Kingdom and Europe. It concludes with an argument for a rethinking of citizenship which recognises young people's rights as citizens and the ways in which these interact with their lived experience at a time that has been characterised as 'the end of the age of entitlement'.

Uses an advice-column format to define citizenship and explain how it can be demonstrated or used in daily situations.