Citizenship is a contested concept. Citizenship is a form of membership in a political entity or collectivity, which provides status, rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for participation through which an individual’s relationship to the collectivity is regulated. Citizenship is therefore a legal status and a set of social practices. Defining citizenship as status and practice draws attention to how citizenship is lived and practiced at different scales, not just at the state level and not just in formal political spaces, enabling more inclusive boundaries of membership.

This understanding is important for childhood studies because children, like other minoritised groups, are often excluded from full citizenship status and political spaces, yet they experience citizenship practices and hold rights and responsibilities and participate in a wide range of interpersonal, ...