The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

American student rights jurisprudence reflects three conceptions of childhood: children as subjects, children as civic learners, and children as citizens. This article traces the historical roots of this ambivalence to a set of cases regarding the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century citizenship crusade. The article details the process through which the conception of children as subjects was complicated by the emergence of competing conceptions based on children’s status as civic learners and citizens. While the cases laid the groundwork for student rights jurisprudence, they also began the process through which judicial ambivalence was enshrined in American constitutional law.