This collection of essays addresses twentieth-century historical and contemporary issues regarding children who are considered to be at risk. The essays explore the language of risk as it is used by the courts, the schools, governmental agencies, and child advocates, those who discover risks and create correctives for children who both need protection and threaten to disturb the social order. The tasks require an exploration of differing, often contradictory, concepts of the child and society that are embedded in public policy debates. Deepening the complexity of the problems, institutions to which we look for solutions are too often faced with conflicts that arise when the needs of the child are at variance with the needs of the institutions themselves. These dilemmas are central to understanding our failure to achieve adequate public policy solutions for children at risk.