From Formal Rights to ‘Living Rights’: Potentialities and Limits of Children's Councils in Terms of Children's Recognition as Social Actors

Based on assessment of children's councils through three consecutive investigations, this article aims to analyse the institutionalisation of participative processes offered to children aged seven to twelve in the city of Lausanne, Switzerland. The underlying premise of the analysis is that the recognition of children as social actors or valid interlocutors depends on social, cultural and political contexts. In this study, the authors consider how children exercise their rights in these councils, and what recognition they gain from exercising them, either individually or collectively. The assessment of the councils sheds light on the lack of references to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by the professionals monitoring the children's councils. The article then argues that this lack of reference to the CRC is a considerable impediment to children's access to their rights, and subsequently to their ability to achieve recognition.