Abstract
This chapter seeks to explore violence against children and adolescents in the context of faith-based residential care and to unpick how religion can be used to legitimate it. The rationale is that this type of childcare integrates violence against children in the form of punishment as part of a broader educational concept seeking to fulfill God’s will in the sense that the institution is conceptualized as helping the children cared for to become what is understood as good Christians. However, since it is nowadays widely acknowledged that violence against children damages them in a way that is not immediately evident but has multiple and long-term consequences for the individual concerned (Greven 1977, 1990; Miller 1987; Bitensky 2006) the question arises how can violence against children possibly be justified.
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© 2014 Sylvia Meichsner
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Meichsner, S. (2014). A Hard Hand for the Sake of God: The Distinction between Positive and Negative Violence in Faith-Based Childcare. In: Wells, K., Burman, E., Montgomery, H., Watson, A. (eds) Childhood, Youth and Violence in Global Contexts. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322609_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322609_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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