Voice, Vulnerability and Dependency: Advocating for Children in a Neoliberal World.

Unlike most of the world's nations, the United States has not adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child and has not engaged with the broader, and perhaps more holistic, questions of voice and access arising out of attempts to comply with the Convention. Instead, although the United States has several well developed children's bars, these bars confine themselves primarily to legal proceedings in defensive matters affecting children's liberty, child protection and juvenile justice. These legalistic approaches, while important, do little to address the larger problems facing children as a result of increasing privatization of need and privilege and abdication of even a pretense of commitment to social, racial, or economic justice. This paper examines the limits and possibilities of representing or projecting children's voice in a context in which they have little control over their social, economic, familial, cultural, or material conditions. The paper explores how advocates might work with children to find strategies to reduce the negative or harmful aspects of their lives while preserving their identities and places in their communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]