ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the significance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in two different but related domains: early childhood education and the family. The first section shows how different conceptions of childhood lead to very different policies. It goes on to describe how a rights-based approach has been applied to the development, provision and monitoring of the provision of early childhood education. The second part, the application of the Convention to families, is more controversial. The controversy is related both to feminist critiques of the family and to traditional resistance to state ‘interference’ in the family. The concept of moral rights is explored in relation to the question of the enforcement of rights. While specific examples are taken from Australia, in particular from the state of Victoria, the descriptions of successful development of policies and analysis of their rationale will be of wider interest.
