Parental Rights Claims and the Political Construction of the Child

• In Event: Race, Ethnicity, and Civil Law

Abstract

This paper explores how “the Child” is constructed as a political figure through “parental rights” litigation - lawsuits filed by parents against K-12 public school race and gender policies. I draw on queer theory and Stuart Hall’s theory of political articulation to analyze litigation as a practice that constitutes “the Child” as a political subject and situates the Child’s authority between the parent, school, and court. I employ critical discourse analysis of case materials from over fifty lawsuits to examine how litigants and courts construct various ideas of the Child as a political subject: Who speaks for the Child? Who bears responsibility for the Child’s moral and political formation? What social order is the Child imagined to reproduce? I discuss the patterns and consequences of these different frames for how children are situated as conduits of competing visions of social reproduction, national identity, and political futures.

Author

• Lauren Hagani, University of Chicago