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‘Do you want to do some arm wrestling?’: children's strategies when experiencing domestic violence and the meaning of age
Author(s) -
Överlien Carolina
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
child and family social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-2206
pISSN - 1356-7500
DOI - 10.1111/cfs.12283
Subject(s) - thematic analysis , meaning (existential) , agency (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , domestic violence , psychology , developmental psychology , gender studies , suicide prevention , sociology , poison control , social psychology , medicine , qualitative research , social science , geography , medical emergency , psychotherapist , archaeology
The aim of this study is, by analysing children's and young people's discourses, to investigate their strategies in response to domestic violence episodes, in relation to their age. The empirical data come from individual interviews with children and young people (ages 8–20 years) who had experienced domestic violence and lived at refuges for abused women. The thematic analysis shows that the children describe a wide range of strategies before, during and after a violent episode, that all children act regardless of age and that strategies vary according not only to age but also to situation and context. The theoretical framework used is the sociology of childhood, and the analysis engages with theoretical concepts of age, agency and positioning.