Marit Skivenes
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 4174435 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Marit Skivenes |
| NOMBRES | Marit |
| APELLIDO | Skivenes |
| FIRMA | SKIVENES M |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Bergen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5326-6692 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 63 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 468 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 62 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2005 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 11 |
Religion and Continuity for Children in Care—An Examination of Public Views in 40 Countries
This comparative study, the first to date, examines how representative samples of citizens across 40 OECD countries (N = 41,232) balance religion and child welfare when deciding whether to move a five-year-old thriving in foster care to match parental religion. Using a vignette experiment and six hypotheses, the analysis links religiosity, perceived religious rights, authoritarian values, institutional context, and confidence in child protection …
Child-Centric Populations? A study of Nordic populations’ justifications for children’s participation
This study investigates Nordic populations’ culture of human rights, focusing on children as autonomous individuals with rights to be heard. Using a unique survey of representative samples of 1,000 respondents from each country, with a total of 5,073 respondents, this study operationalizes child-centrism as ‘a child being heard’ and analyses justifications for such participation. Results show that 40 percent of respondents emphasize an ethical ju…
What About Their Future? An Analysis of Child Protection Systems' Focus on the Future of Newborn Children in Care Order Decisions
This article examines whether and how governments and child protection systems consider the future of infants when making care order decisions. Infants' placements can be long‐term, so it is important to understand how the child's future is discussed—both generally and in relation to becoming an adult who can participate in society and live independently. The empirical analysis draws on unique data from new‐born removal judgements ( n = 216), cov…
A Global Review of Children’s Visibility in Constitutions
Based on a study of the world’s constitutions, this article argues that while children have some constitutional visibility, they are rarely regarded as persons with agency in a constitutional sense. Their rights, as laid down in the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child ( crc ) of 1989, are poorly reflected in the constitutional texts, which potentially has significant implications for the attention to children’s rights, and for t…
Ask the children
Peer reviewed
The value of responsibility, certainty, and child rights for supporting state intervention in the family – An empirical study of populations in six european countries
This article examines the role individuals’ basic values about responsibility, uncertainty and child rights, have on willingness to accept state intervention in a family in a potential child protection situation. A key area within social sciences is how and when it is justified for governments to restrict individual freedom, for example allow authorities to intervene in the private sphere to protect a child from potential harm. In this article da…
Legitimate child protection interventions and the dimension of confidence
The legitimacy of welfare state institutions is a key question in public policy research. In this study we examine population’s confidence in child protection systems, the role of institutional context and moral alignment. Analysing representative samples of survey data (N=6,043) of citizens in six European countries (Czechia, England, Finland, Norway, Poland and Romania), we find that overall people express confidence in their child protection s…
Balancing paternalism and child centrism
Public Rights Orientations and Views on Long‐Term Care Options for Children in the Child Protection System
This study examines a representative sample of adults in California (USA) and Norway, and their attitudes toward adoption versus foster care in a child protection case. The results show that a majority of people favour adoption for a child who has been removed due to maltreatment and cannot be reunified with birth parents. The study examines if people's rights orientation, favouring children or adults, or favouring birth parents or adoptive paren…
Restricting family life - an examination of citizens’ views on state interventions and parental freedom in eight European countries
This paper examines the public views - a total of 10,348 persons - on restrictions of personal autonomy of others to protect the interest of children. We use representative country samples of the adult populations of Austria, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Spain, and ask them to consider an experimental vignette with three different parental conditions: substance abuse, mental health problems, and learning difficulties. …
Public perceptions of child protection, children’s rights, and personal values
Although there is an expansive literature on public attitudes towards the welfare state, we know comparatively little about public attitudes toward child protection. Gauging public opinion about the state’s role in protecting children is complicated by the contested ideas that underlie the field. Child protection lies at the nexus between competing values about state obligations to allow unfettered parental freedom or to permit constraints on som…
Parental Freedom in the Context of Risk to the Child
Child protection is considered an appropriate government responsibility, but interventions into the family are also some of the most consequential for states. This study examines the normative basis for limiting parents' freedom by exploring public attitudes about a child's safety in the context of increasing risk. Using a randomized survey, we test the causal relationship between levels of risk and parental restrictions on representative samples…
Comparing population views on state responsibility for children in vulnerable situations – the role of institutional context and socio-demographic characteristics
This paper examines populous perspectives of the government’s responsibility to intervene in situations of possible parental neglect of children in England, Finland, Norway, and California (USA), and ask if institutional context, defined as child protection system and children ́s wellbeing situation, are formative for people’s perspectives on government responsibility for children in vulnerable situations and how they view children ́s future. Wit…
Securing permanence for children in care
If children in child protection cannot be cared for by their natural parents, should they be adopted or live in foster home? Results from a study of representative samples of populations ( n = 12 330), in eight European countries—Austria, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway and Spain—and California, USA, reveal that people would recommend adoption over foster care, if a child in public care cannot grow up with their natural parent…
Populations trust in the child protection system
In this study, we examine the trust placed by the populations of nine jurisdictions in their child protection systems. These systems protect children’s rights and grant authority for invasive interventions to curtail or even terminate parental rights and responsibilities. We have representative samples of the populations of each jurisdiction. The results show that about 40–50% of respondents express trust in the child protection agencies, social …
The Invisible Child
We know little about how children are portrayed in care order cases. Using a Child Equality Perspective ( cep ), which demands the child’s presence in proceedings even for children who are not capable of partaking fully in the decision-making process, we examine a sample of 216 judgments from 8 countries involving 220 infants. Our study reveals that the children remain largely invisible, but with clear country differences. Children’s invisibility…
Children’s rights and parents’ rights
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is a widely accepted human rights document and has relevance for child protection policy. This study employs an experimental design with representative samples from Norway and California (USA) to test public perceptions of children's rights in child protection. The countries have welfare states and child protection contexts that differ, and their histories contrast with regard to the UNCRC. Res…
Exploring populations view on thresholds and reasons for child protection intervention – comparing England, Norway, Poland and Romania
This explorative study examines citizens' views on restricting parental freedom to protect children's rights in England, Norway, Poland and Romania. Are there differences in popular views in these four welfare states with different child protection systems, family policies, and approaches to families and children in vulnerable situations? Experimenting between four different parenting problems (unsatisfactory care; alcohol misuse; mental illness;…
Services and support for mothers and newborn babies in vulnerable situations
European countries have a legal obligation to provide services to vulnerable families, and children must not be removed from their parents’ care unless no other viable measures are available. This paper examines whether and how eight jurisdictions provide necessary support and services to families with newborn babies who are considered to be at risk in the child protection system. The data consist of all judgments (n = 216) concerning care orders…
Corporal punishment and reporting to child protection authorities
This study, which draws upon representative survey data of the populations of Austria (n = 1000), Estonia (n = 1069), Ireland (n = 1000), Norway (n = 1002) and Spain (n = 1000), compares population attitudes towards corporal punishment (CP) and whether citizens would report corporal punishment to the child protection authorities. We found significant cross-country differences in attitudes towards CP, but only small differences between countries i…
Judging parental competence
This paper examines the discretionary reasoning of the judiciary in three jurisdictions, England, Germany and Norway, in cases deciding whether a newborn child is safe with her parents or intervention is necessary. Our analysis focuses on one specific dimension of decision makers' exercise of discretion, namely, if and how the strengths and weaknesses of the mother are considered. The data material consists of all decisions concerning care orders…
Children’s Capacities and Role in Matters of Great Significance for Them
How do decision-makers in the judiciary approach children’s capacities as set out in Article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child? Children in public care who cannot be reunified with their birth parents may be adopted, but are children given agency in these cases that are highly important to the involved children? We examine all judgments on adoptions from care made in Norway in a six-year period (2011-2016) involving children aged 4-1…
Family Life for Children in State Care
This paper examines what set of familial circumstances allow for the justifiable interference with the right to respect for family life under Article 8, echr . We analyse all the Courts’ judgments on adoptions from care to find out what the Court means by a “family unit” and the “child ́s best interest”. Our analysis show that the status and respect of the child’s de facto family life is changing. This resonates with a view that children do not o…
Are child protection workers and judges in alignment with citizens when considering interventions into a family? A cross-country study of four jurisdictions
Child welfare removal of infants
Balancing a Child's Best Interests and a Child's Views
We consider the problem of reconciling the two commitments to hear a child and to promote a child's best interests by identifying the principal issues at stake and illustrating them by reference to legal decision-making in the domains of health in the United Kingdom and custody and child protection in Norway. We agree that a child's views are not authoritative but dispute Harry Brighouse's claim that they are only of consultative value, affirming…
Child protection systems within the Danish, Finnish and Norwegian welfare states—time for a child centric approach
This article explores the relationship between the child protection systems and the Nordic welfare state in Denmark, Finland and Norway. Despite an ideological focus on prevention and provision of a fair amount of universal services and in-home child protection services for families and children, there is, nevertheless, a relatively high number of children in the child protection system, even children placed out of their home. The outcome of chil…
Hearing the child
Given that in our view the child has a fundamental right to be heard in all collective deliberative processes determining his or her future, we set out, firstly, what is required of such processes to respect this right – namely that the child's authentic voice is heard and makes a difference – and, secondly, the distance between this ideal and practice exemplified in the work of child welfare and child protection workers in Norway and the UK, chi…
Child welfare workers' perceptions of children's participation
This paper examines how child welfare workers in E ngland, N orway and the USA ( C alifornia) perceive children's participation building on 91 qualitative interviews. First, analysing the data using H art's ladder of children's participation, we found that all N orwegian workers perceived children's participation as some form of decision‐making, whereas 40% of E nglish and 35% of US workers embraced views of children's participation that can be c…
The formalized framework for decision-making in child protection care orders
Care orders within the child protection system are some of the most invasive interventions a state can make. This article examines the discretionary space governments set out for child protection workers when they prepare care orders. We analyse the formalized framework for these decisions in England, Finland, Norway and the United States. We focus on knowledge, timelines, how children and parents are involved and accountability. We find that Nor…
Risk assessment and domestic violence – how do child welfare workers in three countries assess and substantiate the risk level of a 5‐year‐old girl
This paper examine how a sample of 301 child welfare workers in N orway, E ngland and C alifornia, USA assess risk in cases of domestic violence. Decisions in child welfare cases are made under a high degree of uncertainty, and by using the vignette method, we explore whether child welfare systems and risk assessment approaches result in different assessment of risk level and substantiations. We find both cross‐country differences and similaritie…
Dimensions of high quality foster care
Judging the Child's Best Interests
Using a sociological theory of rational argumentation as its point of departure, this article discusses the 'best interests of the child' as a guiding principle when decisions are made. Application of this principle has been criticized for weakening the legal protection of children and parents and resulting in arbitrary and subjective decisions. The criteria for rational decision-making are outlined and three cases of enforced adoption are analys…
When whistle-blowing works
Research on whistle-blowing in the Norwegian public sector shows remarkable findings compared with international research. A very high proportion of employees blow the whistle when they experience misconduct, and the majority of these people receive positive reactions. Furthermore, a majority of the whistle-blowers report that the conduct that led them to blow the whistle improved. These positive findings are different from those reported in inte…
Systemic differences in views on risk
Parents' involvement in care order decisions
This article examines parents' involvement in care order decision‐making in four countries at one particular point in the care order process, namely, when the child protection worker discusses with the parents his or her considerations regarding child removal. The countries represent different child welfare systems with Norway and Finland categorized as ‘family service systems’ and the USA as a ‘child protection system’, with England somewhere in…
The Population's Confidence in the Child Protection System – A Survey Study of England, Finland, Norway and the United States (California)
This article examines the confidence the population (N = 4,003) has in the child welfare system in four countries – England, Finland, Norway and the USA (California). We find that about half or less of the population reports having confidence in the system, which is slightly higher than the confidence in the civil servants in the same countries. The Nordic countries display more confidence in the child welfare system than the Anglo‐American count…
Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions, a comparison between E nglish and N orwegian workers
In a comparison of 53 child welfare workers' risk assessment based on a vignette case about a 9‐year‐old girl, less than one‐third of the child welfare workers in E ngland and N orway, intended to work with fathers. Only 28% and 14%, respectively, suggested involving the stepfather, in spite that, the vignette said he lived with the girl and her mother. The invisible fathers in child welfare have been well documented, but fathers and stepfathers …
Child‐centric or family focused? A study of child welfare workers' perceptions of ethnic minority children in England and Norway
This paper analyses child welfare workers' perceptions of ethnic minority children in England and Norway based on in‐depth interviews with 52 child welfare workers in 2008. We employ a child‐centric theoretical framework to explore up to what extent workers focus on minority children in their perceptions. We found that about half of our study participants ( n = 27) did so, and many more in Norway than England. They perceived many risks and proble…
Lost in Translation
This article explores the challenges that social workers in child welfare agencies in Norway and England experience when working with minority ethnic families who are not proficient in the country's language. This study is based on fifty-three interviews in which social workers reflected on an open-ended question that addresses the differences between working with minority ethnic children and their families and white children and their families, …
Collaboration between service users and professionals
The aim of this study is to examine the conditions for achieving free and open communication in collaboration. The context is child protection where ‘the best interest of the child’ is at stake. First, a theoretical standard based on free and open communication and equal partnership (deliberation) is presented. Secondly, an explorative analysis is undertaken of the collaboration process between professionals and service users in two review groups…
Populations trust in the child protection system
In this study, we examine the trust placed by the populations of nine jurisdictions in their child protection systems. These systems protect children’s rights and grant authority for invasive interventions to curtail or even terminate parental rights and responsibilities. We have representative samples of the populations of each jurisdiction. The results show that about 40–50% of respondents express trust in the child protection agencies, social …
Street-level policy aims of child welfare workers in England, Norway and the United States
This study, which is based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a total of 92 child welfare workers in California, England and Norway conducted between January 2008 and June 2010, analyzes how child welfare workers view the principles underlying their respective child welfare system. We address this question using Lipsky's (1980) understanding of street-level bureaucracy. While we know about the policy principles of governments, we know l…
Citizens' views in four jurisdictions on placement policies for maltreated children
Citizens' opinions on child protection public policy are a key dimension of the legitimacy of a political order. We have conducted a survey vignette on a representative sample of citizens ( N = 4,003) in England, Finland, Norway, and California, USA. The findings show that citizens' opinions are clearly in favour of adoption (75%) rather than long‐term foster care (25%). Context may partly explain the findings, as the responses of the majority of…
How child welfare workers view their work with racial and ethnic minority families
Knowing Our Society' and 'Fighting Against Prejudices
We have very different positions on some issues’
This article compares how child welfare workers in Norway and England experience and cope with communication problems resulting from cultural differences. This study is based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 53 front-line child welfare workers and draws on social theories that understand communication as a social act. We show cross-country variations in child welfare workers' perceptions of the communicative problems and coping mechan…
Adoption in the child welfare system — A cross-country analysis of child welfare workers' recommendations for or against adoption
Challenges for marginalized minority parents in different welfare systems
This article explores the challenges that marginalized minority parents face raising their children in England, Norway and the United States. While there are similar patterns of challenges across the three countries, such as cultural differences, including lack of language proficiency and knowledge of the society and systems, cross-country differences seem primarily to correspond to different systems of welfare aims and services. We discuss the i…
Exploring populations view on thresholds and reasons for child protection intervention – comparing England, Norway, Poland and Romania
This explorative study examines citizens' views on restricting parental freedom to protect children's rights in England, Norway, Poland and Romania. Are there differences in popular views in these four welfare states with different child protection systems, family policies, and approaches to families and children in vulnerable situations? Experimenting between four different parenting problems (unsatisfactory care; alcohol misuse; mental illness;…
Collaboration between service users and professionals
The aim of this study is to examine the conditions for achieving free and open communication in collaboration. The context is child protection where ‘the best interest of the child’ is at stake. First, a theoretical standard based on free and open communication and equal partnership (deliberation) is presented. Secondly, an explorative analysis is undertaken of the collaboration process between professionals and service users in two review groups…
We have very different positions on some issues’
This article compares how child welfare workers in Norway and England experience and cope with communication problems resulting from cultural differences. This study is based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 53 front-line child welfare workers and draws on social theories that understand communication as a social act. We show cross-country variations in child welfare workers' perceptions of the communicative problems and coping mechan…
Hearing the child
Given that in our view the child has a fundamental right to be heard in all collective deliberative processes determining his or her future, we set out, firstly, what is required of such processes to respect this right – namely that the child's authentic voice is heard and makes a difference – and, secondly, the distance between this ideal and practice exemplified in the work of child welfare and child protection workers in Norway and the UK, chi…
Balancing a Child's Best Interests and a Child's Views
We consider the problem of reconciling the two commitments to hear a child and to promote a child's best interests by identifying the principal issues at stake and illustrating them by reference to legal decision-making in the domains of health in the United Kingdom and custody and child protection in Norway. We agree that a child's views are not authoritative but dispute Harry Brighouse's claim that they are only of consultative value, affirming…
Deciding best interests
This article addresses the difficult matter of interpreting the best interest principle, and offers advice for those who must make laws, and those who make decisions within the constraints of those laws. Our approach rests on an assumption that conclusions about best interest are best reached through a reasoned deliberative process. We suggest that legislators should not write substantive assumptions about what is best for every child into their …
Lost in Translation
This article explores the challenges that social workers in child welfare agencies in Norway and England experience when working with minority ethnic families who are not proficient in the country's language. This study is based on fifty-three interviews in which social workers reflected on an open-ended question that addresses the differences between working with minority ethnic children and their families and white children and their families, …
Knowing Our Society' and 'Fighting Against Prejudices
When whistle-blowing works
Research on whistle-blowing in the Norwegian public sector shows remarkable findings compared with international research. A very high proportion of employees blow the whistle when they experience misconduct, and the majority of these people receive positive reactions. Furthermore, a majority of the whistle-blowers report that the conduct that led them to blow the whistle improved. These positive findings are different from those reported in inte…
Judging the Child's Best Interests
Using a sociological theory of rational argumentation as its point of departure, this article discusses the 'best interests of the child' as a guiding principle when decisions are made. Application of this principle has been criticized for weakening the legal protection of children and parents and resulting in arbitrary and subjective decisions. The criteria for rational decision-making are outlined and three cases of enforced adoption are analys…
Child Protection Systems
?Child Protection Systems is a comparative study of the social policies and professional practices that frame societal responses to the problems of child maltreatment in ten countries: USA, Canada, England, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway. Focusing on the developments in policy and practice since the mid-1990s, this volume provides a detailed, up-to-date analysis of the similarities and differences in how ch…
Child‐centric or family focused? A study of child welfare workers' perceptions of ethnic minority children in England and Norway
This paper analyses child welfare workers' perceptions of ethnic minority children in England and Norway based on in‐depth interviews with 52 child welfare workers in 2008. We employ a child‐centric theoretical framework to explore up to what extent workers focus on minority children in their perceptions. We found that about half of our study participants ( n = 27) did so, and many more in Norway than England. They perceived many risks and proble…
How child welfare workers view their work with racial and ethnic minority families
Adoption in the child welfare system — A cross-country analysis of child welfare workers' recommendations for or against adoption
How child welfare workers perceive their work with undocumented immigrant families
Dimensions of high quality foster care
Challenges for marginalized minority parents in different welfare systems
This article explores the challenges that marginalized minority parents face raising their children in England, Norway and the United States. While there are similar patterns of challenges across the three countries, such as cultural differences, including lack of language proficiency and knowledge of the society and systems, cross-country differences seem primarily to correspond to different systems of welfare aims and services. We discuss the i…
Child protection systems within the Danish, Finnish and Norwegian welfare states—time for a child centric approach
This article explores the relationship between the child protection systems and the Nordic welfare state in Denmark, Finland and Norway. Despite an ideological focus on prevention and provision of a fair amount of universal services and in-home child protection services for families and children, there is, nevertheless, a relatively high number of children in the child protection system, even children placed out of their home. The outcome of chil…
Risk assessment and domestic violence – how do child welfare workers in three countries assess and substantiate the risk level of a 5‐year‐old girl
This paper examine how a sample of 301 child welfare workers in N orway, E ngland and C alifornia, USA assess risk in cases of domestic violence. Decisions in child welfare cases are made under a high degree of uncertainty, and by using the vignette method, we explore whether child welfare systems and risk assessment approaches result in different assessment of risk level and substantiations. We find both cross‐country differences and similaritie…
Fostering in the welfare states of the US and Norway
This paper aims to explore the differences between Norwegian and US welfare state ideologies, and if or how they are reflected in the respective foster care systems and in the daily practices of foster parents. Our analysis combines a review of policy documents and legal regulations, with interviews in a sample of 141 exemplary foster parents (87 from the US and 54 from Norway). The paper identifies clear differences in how these two states take …
Systemic differences in views on risk
Street-level policy aims of child welfare workers in England, Norway and the United States
This study, which is based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a total of 92 child welfare workers in California, England and Norway conducted between January 2008 and June 2010, analyzes how child welfare workers view the principles underlying their respective child welfare system. We address this question using Lipsky's (1980) understanding of street-level bureaucracy. While we know about the policy principles of governments, we know l…
Child welfare workers' perceptions of children's participation
This paper examines how child welfare workers in E ngland, N orway and the USA ( C alifornia) perceive children's participation building on 91 qualitative interviews. First, analysing the data using H art's ladder of children's participation, we found that all N orwegian workers perceived children's participation as some form of decision‐making, whereas 40% of E nglish and 35% of US workers embraced views of children's participation that can be c…
Child welfare workers' views of fathers in risk assessment and planned interventions, a comparison between E nglish and N orwegian workers
In a comparison of 53 child welfare workers' risk assessment based on a vignette case about a 9‐year‐old girl, less than one‐third of the child welfare workers in E ngland and N orway, intended to work with fathers. Only 28% and 14%, respectively, suggested involving the stepfather, in spite that, the vignette said he lived with the girl and her mother. The invisible fathers in child welfare have been well documented, but fathers and stepfathers …
The formalized framework for decision-making in child protection care orders
Care orders within the child protection system are some of the most invasive interventions a state can make. This article examines the discretionary space governments set out for child protection workers when they prepare care orders. We analyse the formalized framework for these decisions in England, Finland, Norway and the United States. We focus on knowledge, timelines, how children and parents are involved and accountability. We find that Nor…
The Emotional Dimension in Risk Assessment
This paper examines a sample of ninety-three child welfare workers’ perceptions of emotional relations in risk assessment situations. Workers from England, Norway and California (USA) are interviewed about risk factors in a vignette. Seventy-three per cent of the total workers identify the emotional issues described in the vignette as a risk factor, but a lower percentage of the American workers do so. Nearly all of these workers identify the mot…
Political science (55 obras) · Psychology (48 obras) · Law (45 obras) · Child Abuse and Trauma (42 obras) · Law (39 obras) · Social Psychology (30 obras) · Welfare (30 obras) · Sociology (29 obras) · Child protection (27 obras) · Child Welfare and Adoption (27 obras)