Abstract
This paper discusses how social-welfare officials interpret an instance of the suspected maltreatment of a child; the ways in which such interpretation is structured in a bureaucratic context in order to construct a case; and the implications of interpretation and of the emerging structure of the case for the practice of child-welfare. The venue of discussion is the child-welfare division of the public Department of Social Services in the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Davoren E. 1974 The Role of the Social Worker. In Ray Heifer and Harry Kempe (eds.), The Battered Child (Second Edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gaylin, W., I. Glasser, S. Marcus, and D. Rothman 1978 Doing Good: The Limits of Benevolence. New York: Pantheon.
Gelles, Richard J. 1974 Child Abuse as Psychopathology: A Sociological Critique and Reformulation. In Suzanne Steinmetz and Murray Straus (eds.), Violence in the Family. New York: Dodd, Mead.
Gil, David G. 1973 Violence Against Children: Physical Child Abuse in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Handelman, Don 1976 Bureaucratic Transactions: The Development of Official-Client Relationships in Israel. In Bruce Kapferer (ed.), Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, pp. 223–275.
Handelman, Don 1978 Bureaucratic Interpretation: The Perception of Child Abuse in Urban Newfoundland. In Don Handelman and Elliot Leyton, Bureaucracy and World View: Studies in the Logic of Official Interpretation. St John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland. pp. 15–69.
Handelman, Don 1979 The Interpretation of Child Abuse: Bureaucratic Relevance in Urban Newfoundland. Sociology and Social Welfare 6: 70–88.
Handelman, Don 1980 Bureaucratic Affiliation: The Moral Component in Welfare Instances. In Emanuel Marx (ed.), A Composite Portrait of Israel. London: Academic Press, pp. 257–282.
Handelman, Don 1981 Introduction: The Idea of Bureaucratic Organization. Social Analysis 9: 5–23.
Handelman, Don 1983 Shaping Phenomenal Reality: Dialectic and Disjunction in the Bureaucratic Synthesis of Child Abuse in Urban Newfoundland. Social Analysis 13: 3–36.
Jehenson, Roger 1973 A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of the Formal Organization. In George Psathas (ed.) Phenomenological Sociology. New York: John Wiley, pp. 219–247.
Korbin, Jill E. (ed.) 1981 Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Light, R. 1973 Abuse and Neglected Children in America. Harvard Educational Review 43: 556–598.
Morris, Marian G. and Robert W. Gould 1963 Role Reversal: A Concept in Dealing with the Neglected/Battered-Child Syndrome. In The Neglected Battered-Child Syndrome. New York: Child Welfare League of America.
Parke, Ross D. and Candace Whitmer Collmer 1975 Child Abuse: An Interdisciplinary Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Renvioze, Jean
Parke, Ross D. 1975 Children in Danger. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Schneider, David 1968 American Kinship: A Cultural Account. Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Schutz, Alfred and Thomas Luckmann
Parke, Ross D. 1973 The Structures of the Life-World. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Scott, Robert A. 1969 The Making of Blind Men. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Scott, Robert A. 1970 The Construction of Conceptions of Stigma by Professional Experts. In Jack D. Douglas (ed.), Deviance and Respectability. New York: Basic Books.
Shamgar-Handelman, Lea 1981 Administering to War Widows in Israel: The Birth of a Social Category. Social Analysis 9: 24–47.
Shamgar-Handelman, Lea and Don Handelman 1986 Holiday Celebrations in Kindergartens in Israel: On Relationships Between Representations of Collectivity and Family in the Nation-State. In M.J. Aronoff (ed.), The Frailty of Authority (Political Anthropology, Vol. 5). New Brunswick: Transaction Books, pp. 71–103.
Steele, B.F. and C.B. Pollock 1974 A Psychiatric Study of Parents Who Abuse Infants and Small Children. In Ray Heifer and Henry Kempe (eds.), The Battered Child (2nd Edition). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Weber, Max (1964) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. First published 1947. This Edn. edited by Talcott Parsons. New York: The Free Press.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1987 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Handelman, D. (1987). Bureaucracy and the Maltreatment of the Child: Interpretive and Structural Implications. In: Scheper-Hughes, N. (eds) Child Survival. Culture, Illness and Healing, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3393-4_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3393-4_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-55608-029-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-3393-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive