Focusing on children's citizenship, participation and rights, this edited collection draws on the work of a number of leading scholars in the sociology of childhood. The contributors explore a range of themes including: tensions between pragmatism and grand theory; revisiting agency/structure debates in the light of children; the challenging of binary thought prevalent in studies around 'generations' and other aspects of sociology; the manifestation of power in time and space; the application of theories into the 'real' world through NGOs, practitioners, policy makers, politicians and empirical research. The collection will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including childhood studies, sociology, politics and social policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners interested in the citizenship, rights and participation of children.

Claudio Baraldi is Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.Tom Cockburn is Professor of Social Sciences and Head of Department at the Department of Social Sciences, Edge Hill University, UK. 

1. Introduction: Lived Citizenship, rights and participation in contemporary Europe; Claudio Baraldi and Tom Cockburn.- 2. Childrens citizenship in globalised societies; Hanne Warming.- 3. Childrens participation: definitions, narratives and disputes; Michael Wyness.- 4. Recognition and capability: a new way to understand how children can achieve their rights?; Nigel Thomas  and Daniel Stoecklin.- 5. Theorising Childrens Bodies. A critical review of relational understandings in Childhood Studies; Florian Eßer.- 6. Unexpected allies. Expanding the theoretical toolbox of the childrens rights sociologist; Michele Poretti.- 7. Beyond the modern norm of childhood: children at the margins as a challenge for the Sociology of Childhood; Manuel Jacinto Sarmento, Rita de Cássia Marchi and Gabriela de Pina Trevisan.- 8. Participation as learning for change in everyday spaces: Enhancing meaning and effectiveness using action research; Barry Percy-Smith.-9. The child, the pupil, the citizen. Outlines and perspectives of a critical theory of citizenship education; Federico Farini.- 10. Heteropolitical pedagogies. citizenship and childhood. Commoning education in contemporary Greece; Yannis Pechtelidis.- 11. The right to be transnational. Narratives and positionings of children with a migration background in Italy; Sara Amadasi and Vittorio Iervese.- 12. Conclusions: Lived Childhoods; Claudio Baraldi and Tom Cockburn.