Introduction
Re-forming lives: the child on the street and the 'street child'
Sedimenting labour through schooling: colonial state, native elite and working children in early twentieth-century India
Memories of tomorrow: on children, labour and postcolonial 'development'
The politics of failure: children's rights and the 'call of the other'
'A magic wand': reading the promise of the 'right to education' against the lives of working children
Conclusion: growing up, moving on...