AP/CCY 4148 3.00

Children and the Law in Historical Perspective

This course traces the history of children and childhood from the Middle Ages into the early twentieth century using historical, literary, and cultural sources. The primary (but not exclusive) focus is on the Anglo-American legal tradition. Topics include: the treatment of children under the common law in the criminal courts and in matters having to do with the family; the beginning of the law reform movement in the early Industrial Age that sought to improve the lives and social condition of children; and the emergence in the nineteenth century of the child-saving movement that led to increasing state intervention in the areas of education, parenting, and child welfare. The course will conclude with the first international human rights declarations following the First World War that culminated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.