Children: Rights and Childhood is widely regarded as the first book to offer a detailed philosophical examination of children's rights. Drawing on a wide variety of sources from law and literature to politics and psychology, David Archard provides a clear and accessible introduction to a topic that has assumed increasing relevance since the book's first publication.

Divided clearly into three parts, Children: Rights and Childhood covers key topics such as:

• John Locke's writings on children
• Philippe Aries's Centuries of Childhood
• key texts on children's liberation and rights
• a child's right to vote and to sexual choice
• the rights of parents and the state over children
• defining and understanding child abuse.

The second edition has been fully revised and updated including a new preface, a new chapter on children's moral and legal rights, taking into account the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.