AP/CCY 4149 3.00

Contemporary Canadian Childhood and the Law

This course investigates how children learn about and experience the law through children’s literature and through direct contact with the legal system. Topics include: children’s understanding of legal terminology; the law’s treatment of discipline and punishment in the school system and at home; the circumstances under which children can be removed from their parents and placed in foster care; the rights of children under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law; and the ethical and legal duties of professionals who work with children. Through reading court cases and other legal texts students learn about the social policies that inform the law and consider how the law could be reformed in ways that would empower children and recognize childhood as an equal rather than a subordinate legal category.