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This book addresses key aspects of the post- and decolonial analysis of childhood, such as the scope and limitations of Eurocentric concepts of childhood and the impact of social inequality aggravated by capitalist globalization on children's life prospects. In this context, it discusses the specific modes of agency emerging in children of the Global South. It reconstructs the way in which the colonialization process and the ideologies that supported it have used the metaphor of childhood, and investigates the extent to which they are reproduced in processes of colonizing childhoods. The book presents some colonial and postcolonial policy approaches to modelling childhood in different regions of the world, and asks how, within the postcolonial constellation, children's rights are to be understood and how to deal with them to overcome postcolonial paternalism. Particularly, it discusses various forms of paternalism and asks how they can be overcome in the field of rights-based children’s protection and participation and how child-led movements in the Global South can be understood as a form of citizenship from below. The book explains theoretical and conceptional reflections by case studies from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Finally, the book portrays efforts directed against the invisibilization, marginalization and social exclusion of childhoods and the recuperation of a dignified life of children.

The book develops a novel theory of children’s place in liberal theory. It argues that justice requires promoting children’s wellbeing, not merely their fair access to resources. I argue that one important driver of children’s wellbeing is the ethical doctrines held by others in their society, as such a just society requires a culture that is conducive to children’s current and later flourishing. I outline a conception of children’s interests rooted in their ability to develop their talents, and in their current and future relationships with their family and wider community. I then apply this theory to the morality of parenting, and to two important distributive questions, school funding and parental subsidies. I argue that parents have important moral rights over their children, but that these rights are considerably more circumscribed than is often believed. I suggest that children’s deepest interests are furthered by equality of opportunity, and that the importance of parenting implies that states should transfer resources to families.