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Children's Challenges to Efforts to Save Them: Competing Knowledges in the Child Welfare System
Author(s) -
Reich Jennifer A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.2010.33.3.412
Subject(s) - contest , state (computer science) , intervention (counseling) , ethnography , welfare , sociology , perception , power (physics) , rework , social psychology , psychology , public relations , political science , law , engineering , computer science , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , psychiatry , anthropology , embedded system
The child welfare system is founded on a belief that children are sometimes endangered by their parents or caregivers and must be saved by agents of the state. Children are perceived as objects to be saved, but they are rarely seen as active strategists in their interactions with child welfare system social workers. Using ethnographic data collected during observations of social workers and juvenile court proceedings, this article shows how children have their own complex understandings of state intervention and strive—to varying degrees of success—to contest official views of their lives and provide competing forms of knowledge. Specifically, children attempt to rework state actors' perceptions of their families and familial problems, use state actors as an audience for their versions of their lives, and attempt to mobilize state power for personal or material gain.