Facilitating disclosures of violence in child maintenance cases

• This paper uses conversation analysis to examine 671 calls to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA), where separated parents raise concerns related to child maintenance. Parents in Sweden must sort out maintenance themselves but the SSIA can intervene if there is a history of domestic violence that make contact problematic. Where this is the case, the abused parent must disclose it to the SSIA officer. Our analysis shows that parents’ descriptions tend to be implicit and non-specific, which confirms what previous research in other institutional settings has found (Tennent & Weatherall 2019). In our data, orientations to violence are built in a step-wise manner, incrementally adding information that makes violence inferentially available. In most cases, however, call-takers respond minimally and do not treat violence as relevant, and callers must do considerable work to establish it as such. In the few instances where call-takers ask about violence, it is done with a preference for denial, placing additional burden on callers. Our findings highlight the need for training, both in recognizing variations of domestic violence and for developing communication skills relevant for facilitating disclosures.ReferencesTennent, E. & Weatherall, A. (2019), Disclosing violence in calls for help. Gender & Language 13(2): 270-288.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)