The representation of childhood in the discourse on the rights of the child in the twentieth century

In the framework of supranational policies, during the twentieth century we have witnessed the construction of a discourse on childhood, which has become universal and hegemonic. The aim of this article is to analyse how the approach to the rights of the child set a new paradigm for understanding childhood. To that end, the document corpus analysed is composed of the texts of international treaties, as well as reports by UNICEF and the General Comments by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. This substantive documentation allows us to observe the transformations, contradictions, continuities and ruptures in the discourse on childhood.