Re-understanding the Child’s Right to Identity

Ya'ir Ronen, M.A., LL.D, senior lecturer at Ben-Gurion University, is an interdisciplinary scholar, personal coach and mediator. He has written and lectured on children's silenced narratives, social inclusivity and justice, responsiveness to suffering, construction of memory, faith in individuals and families, belonging, authenticity, interdependence, nonviolence and spirituality.

• Excerpt of Table of ContentsPermissions; Acknowledgements;Forward;Prologue;Chapter 1: Re-understanding the Right to Identity as a Right to Belonging I. Introduction; II. The rationale for re-understanding the right to Identity; III. International law; IV. Identity in two cases; V. Conclusion; Chapter 2: Responsiveness to Children and Law’s Healing Power I.Introduction;II. Responsiveness to children's suffering, Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the path blazed by Emmanuel Levinas;III. Is there a cure to the universal phenomenon of denying children's suffering?;IV. How can protecting children actualize democracy's unique potential?; V. What should be the principal aim of state action on behalf of the suffering child?;VI. How can we respond to the child's suffering through The Best Interests Principle?;VII. More on responding to the child's experience in a multicultural society;VIII. Conclusion;Chapter 3: Children’s Identity, Constructing Memory through Law and Its Responsiveness to ChildrenI. Introduction; II. Alienation, children's experience and doctrinal thinking;III. Self-constructing identity and remembering as dynamic processes;IV. Authoring Memory through law and the Challenge of Psychological Mindedness;V. Struggling over Memory;VI. Protecting the Family Lives of Children from Disadvantaged Homes;VII. Conclusion;Chapter 4: The Child’s Right to be OneselfI. Introduction; II. Neglect of the need 'to be' and a preoccupation with material progress;III. Protecting the child‘s need to be a spiritually authentic being;IV. Postmodernism and the need to be one‘s self within a committed family that offers the child values;Chapter 5 The Courage to Hope and Protecting Children’s Sense of Belonging: The Case of Child Protection I. Introduction;II. On skepticism and reality;III. On social responsibility and the public response to children at risk and their families ;IV. Conclusion.Index