Whose childhoods count? Reclaiming and redefining childhoods beyond limiting narratives

Abstract

Dominant narratives often present childhood as a universal, idealized stage of innocence and dependence. However, these narratives obscure the ways in which childhood is differentially constructed and distributed across race, class, migration status, and geography. This article interrogates the structural, historical, and legal frameworks that shape childhood, revealing how policies and institutions differentially extend protection and privilege to some children while criminalizing and excluding others. Drawing from Critical Childhood Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and the Politics of Belonging and Bordering, we examine how childhood is racialized, bordered, and surveilled—particularly for Black, Indigenous, and migrant children. Using Critical Narrative Analysis, we analyze how legal, educational, and policy discourses sustain exclusionary constructions of childhood that render certain children as being unworthy of care, innocence, or opportunity. Findings highlight the racialized adultification of Black children, the hyper-surveillance of Indigenous youth, and the weaponization of immigration policies that deny migrant children the right to childhood itself. These disparities expose how childhood is neither neutral nor universal but an active site of contestation, where power structures determine who counts as a child and who does not. In response, this article calls for a radical reimagining of childhood that moves beyond rigid, Eurocentric developmental models toward more just, inclusive, and culturally affirming understandings. We advocate for restorative justice approaches in education, decolonized frameworks for early childhood policies, and a rejection of punitive legal structures that police childhood. By centering diverse epistemologies and community-based care, we aim to disrupt exclusionary paradigms and envision a world where every child is truly recognized, valued, and supported.