Children’s Rights and Contemporary Sociological Perspectives of Childhood

The essay proposes an interpretation of the legislation on children's rights in the light of a sociological perspectives. According to this approach, the 1989 United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child includes a number of problems and contradictions, although it is important in changing the traditional culture of childhood. In particular, the UN Convention conveys both a perspective on children's agency and active participation, and a perspective on children's education and protection from risks. This contradiction implies that actions trying to favour new representations of children as social actors are not sufficiently effective as thery are not supported by a clear cultural orientation about children's rights.