ABSTRACT
Michael Freeman, editor of the International Journal of Children’s Rights, has for many years called for a dialogue between children’s rights advocates and sociologists of childhood (Freeman, 1998, 2012). This chapter sets out to contribute to this dialogue, and will argue that the two fields of study have come closer, and they bring differing perspectives to bear. However, there are fundamental epistemological differences between sociologists and lawyers, and this limits the extent to which the two can align. The chapter introduces sociological theories of childhood, through various phases, and explores how sociological approaches are important to understanding children’s human rights. The chapter is structured as follows: the first section briefly explains what sociology is, and what sociology has to say about human rights in general. The second section describes ideas about children and childhood within sociology, and the third section draws on an empirical example from India to illustrate how a sociological approach may facilitate better understanding of multiple interconnecting processes that operate as barriers to, or enablers of, the implementation of children’s rights.
