The study explores concepts of childhood in aspects of public policy in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago from 1989-1991. It examines mainstream and special needs educational provision, youth-employment -training and discipline in schools, for young people between the age of eleven to eighteen years. Policy is treated as a multi-level, interactive process. This requires the penetration of notions held by planners, parents, teachers and young people themselves. Based on the premise that childhood is a multifaceted concept, requiring the application of analytical methods and tools that reflect its complexity, a framework of analysis is developed around the central concept of childhood as a stage of life. The framework is also designed to facilitate the mapping of conflating and competing notions. This leads to an in-depth investigation of childhood transitions for the target group. The study challenges some beliefs about the structures that underpin dominant concepts and the ideologies whereby they are sustained. This involves the deconstruction and reconstruction of one notion of childhood, that of "teenage pregnancy" and of one notion of the education system, that of "automatic promotion". These are effected by means of the quantitative and qualitative analysis of statistical data. They serve as examples of possible approaches to the investigation of concepts and starting points for further development. The research reveals considerable ignorance about basic elements of systems and institutions designed to serve the needs of young people, at all levels of the policy process. It also shows that manipulation at these levels produces an educational system that does not resonate with descriptions in policy documents. In this process, variables combine to place some young people In particularly disadvantageous positions. It suggests that the co-existence of competing concepts, revealed in the study, reflect the nature of childhood. This leads to consideration of the relationship between different approaches to the study of childhood and the implications in the study for the development of childhood paradigms. The study concludes that notions currently function in Trinidad and Tobago as protective devices, saving adults from the kind of self- confrontation essential to reform. The prevalent approach, at a time when structural and ideological factors combine to place our young people under great stress, is to hold their failings responsible for many societal ills. Present policies tend to exacerbate rather than relieve this tension.