Global North Childhoods

The concept of Global North childhood includes an inherent presumption of a North–South binary axis and North versus South (or North over South) relations of power. The Global North is not an exactly defined place on the map nor does it cover half the globe. And the Global North contains a huge variety of childhoods which, because of space limitations, cannot be comprehensively addressed in a single encyclopedia entry.

What follows is organized into four sections. The first addresses some key definitional concepts; the second briefly explores academic and legal discourses on children and childhood and their legal/political consequences. The third part grounds the discussion by touching on a single fragment of lived childhood experience in the Global North, and the fourth consists of some concluding ...