Rights of the Child and the Changing Image of Childhood

In this book Philip E. Veerman presents and discusses milestones in the evolution of children's rights, as well as the work of a number of important pioneers in this field in order to examine whether the concept of childhood has changed in our century. With Samuel Shye's `Systemic Quality of Life Model' as a conceptual framework and uniform standard, more than forty Declarations and Conventions are analysed and compared. Veerman thus unfolds an exciting picture of the changing image of childhood, starting at the beginning of this century and culminating in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, and the World Summit for Children of 1990. Finally the author proposes, together with Samuel Shye, a Declaration on the Rights of the Child based on the `Systemic Quality of Life Model'. All the important Declarations and Conventions are reprinted as appendices. This makes Veerman's study a complete and up-to-date textbook on children's right. Dr. Veerman is the coordinator of the Israel Section of Defence for Children International (DCI) and Fellow of the Youth Policy Center of Haifa University.