Children and citizenship

From a political point of view, children are not citizens: they have no voting rights. However, there are laws and treaties that deal with the rights and duties of children. In the Netherlands, for example, school attendance is compulsory and children are prohibited from working. At the international level, the citizenship of children is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a UN treaty that has also been signed by the Netherlands.

There are differing views on the relationship between children and citizenship. One school of thought says that children are not yet adults and that childhood is simply preparation for citizenship at a later date. In this view, citizenship is a status that is attained. Children must learn how to behave as democratic citizens and should be taught this at school. A second school of thought sees the citizenship of children as a social practice. Those who adhere to this school do not make any fundamental distinction between children and adults: both age categories continually put citizenship into practice. The emphasis on social practice presumes a dynamic and relational process that is referred to as doing or practising citizenship. Putting citizenship into practice presumes at the least a visible presence in the public domain and involves the practices of dealing with ‘the other’ and the processes of inclusion and exclusion. Who is left out and who is allowed to join in? Who determines the rules and who can change them? This article will follow this second notion of citizenship, with an emphasis on urban public spaces as a representation and practice space. In what ways are children present in these spaces? What kind of children are they? And how much leeway do they have for their behaviour? But first we will examine the demographic position of urban children.

The demographics of children in the city

Children have always lived in the city, but they began to disappear starting from the 1960s due to mass suburbanisation, as it was especially families with children that left the city and moved to the suburban areas surrounding the large cities. The city became the domain of young, childless households. The image of the city as an unsuitable living environment for children persisted for a long time.