ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the field of children´s rights studies is underpinned by the assumption that even more or better inclusion of children in social and political life can act as a source of critique that will lead to societal transformations, children’s emancipation, and access to justice. However, if the calls for children´s inclusion have constituted a continuum in societal and scholarly critique for decades, what is then left of its radical potential for societal transformation and what alternative pathways can we explore for a critical study of children´s rights? In the first part, ‘inclusion as critique’, the chapter outlines some of the ideational roots to the current scholarly drive to include children as a critique of existing norms, practices, and structures. In the second part, ‘critique after inclusion’, the chapter outlines a set of possible pathways forward to engage in critique in the study of children’s rights that move beyond a focus on more and better inclusion of children.
