Youth victimisation, school and family support: schools’ strategies to handle abused children

Abstract

This article explores and investigates school officials’ narratives about how schools involve and collaborate with families, social services, the police, and other agencies to support students who are suspected of being exposed to domestic violence. School officials’ describe their work as positioned within legal restrictions and official policies, and they express a strong wish to create good relationships with families and other authorities to support vulnerable students. The narratives also indicate that school officials construct different explanations for child abuse according to the family's background. Abuse and neglect of children by Swedish parents are understood and explained in terms of social, psychological, and psychiatric problems, whereas the same behavior in immigrant parent is framed and explained in terms of culture or ethnicity.