Poverty, Social Structure and Child Abuse

  • Nigel Parton
Chapter

Abstract

The disease model of child abuse, with its emphasis on individualised treatment, cure and prediction, is the dominant paradigm in research, policy and practice. Child abuse is conceptualised as a pathological phenomenon with roots in the personality or psychodynamics of abusing parents. While social factors are taken into account these are seen in terms of the characteristics or factors associated with abusive individuals or families. The model ignores the social arrangements in which people live, and denies that social and economic factors have any responsibility for the problem. In the process it fails to explore the social context in which abuse arises. This leads to two major lacunae. It fails to recognise the importance of inequality and the sense of frustration, repression and aggression that results: by concentrating on dangerous people it ignores dangerous conditions. And it blinds us to the abusive but non-individualistic practices of industrial, corporate and government agencies. In seeing abuse as being manifested and caused at the individual level we do not critically analyse the abuse that institutions, organisations and the wider society practise and legitimate.

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Notes and References

  1. 1.
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© Nigel Parton 1985

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  • Nigel Parton

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