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The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems pp 1–25Cite as

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Adult-Child Co-agency - For or Against Children’s Rights

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Abstract

In 2004, Romania has translated the provisions of the CRC into a law forbidding all forms of violence against children with further legislation upcoming the following years. We examine two cases of school child abuse by teachers, where law didn’t support – indeed didn’t allow – representing children’s interests, let alone their choice, in the context where parents fought on their side. In this, we rely on a factual representation of events as well as media analysis to decipher the perceptions that motivate the events beyond mere systemic inertia; furthermore, we use excerpts from interviews with experts on the social or legislative side of the events. Our aim is to identify the chances and traps of coagentic attitudes that may create law to support children’s rights or may succumb into vigilantism or factional warfare that adulates abuse. Through our analysis, we deduce two sets of issues: the interests and participation of children may be impeded by the very democratic processes used to express the agency of citizens; and action in support of children’s perceived interest may serve as a cover for mere adultism.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to these results has received funding from the EEA Grants 2014-2021, under the Project CONSENT, contract no. 11, EEA-RO-NO-2018-0586.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Áron Telegdi-Csetri, Sorana Constantinescu, Viorela Ducu & Maria Roth

Authors
  1. Áron Telegdi-Csetri
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  2. Sorana Constantinescu
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  3. Viorela Ducu
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  4. Maria Roth
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Viorela Ducu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Rajendra Baikady

  2. Department of Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

    S.M Sajid

  3. Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland

    Jaroslaw Przeperski

  4. Department of Social Work, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa

    Varoshini Nadesan

  5. Inst of Social Welfare & Res, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Islam Rezaul

  6. Sch of Philosophy & Social Development, Shandong University, Central Campus, Jinan, China

    Jianguo Gao

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Telegdi-Csetri, Á., Constantinescu, S., Ducu, V., Roth, M. (2021). Adult-Child Co-agency - For or Against Children’s Rights. In: Baikady, R., Sajid, S., Przeperski, J., Nadesan, V., Rezaul, I., Gao, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_25-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_25-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-68127-2

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