Children’s rights in the Spanish policies of childhood

Abstract

Abstract
From the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1989, children’s rights, mainly participation rights, and citizenship have been used as a frame of reference for policy makers at national level. However, citizenship and rights, from a substantive perspective, might be considered in national, historical and social contexts. Due to both are cultural processes.

This article analyzes the Spanish policies of childhood, taking into account the historical, political and social process through which they have been providing a legal and substantive status of citizenship for children. It is distinguished three discursive stages about the child position as subject of rights in Spain. The first stage begins with the constitution of democratic and welfare state in 1978. The Spanish government opened-up to international assumptions of children’s rights, under democratic principles of universality and equality. This period was characterized by the centrality of welfare for children, where rights of provision and protection were emphasized over the idea of the children as social and participatory right-holders. The second discursive stage begins with the Spanish ratification of the 1989 United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1990, when the Spanish government develops a set of political and legislative changes towards the consideration of childhood as a social phenomenon and children as independent subject of rights. In the third and final stage, Spanish politics of childhood started to involve the idea of the competent child and citizen, according to the increased government regulation and international assumptions (Legal reform 2011). Nevertheless, these universal legalities were (re)elaborated by Spanish cultural determinants such a paternalistic perspective on family and citizenship and the emphasis on the authority and family to socialize and integrate children in society. The article concludes with some critical reflections about the impact of those policies for children regard their inclusion and real recognition as legal subjects of rights. It is suggested that extension of rights for children in Spain has not been applied evenly for all them, regardless their social background. Moreover, despite the constitutional principles of equality and universality, mechanisms of exclusion democratic and morally legitimated were generated on the based on different conceptions of childhood. Despite the protection legal reform sanctioned in 2015.