Abused women with children or children of abused women? A study of conflicting perspectives at women's refuges in Norway
Abstract
Women's refuges were established in Norway in the late 1970s by and for women. From the very outset, abused women have also brought their children to the refuges. With an increasing political, practical and research focus on the situation of children exposed to violence, the Norwegian refuge movement today is expected to apply both the woman's and the child's perspective in their work. By analysing the discourse of children staying at women's refuges, this paper discusses and sheds light on situations where the two perspectives come into conflict and the implications of these conflicts for the children and for the women's refuge movement as a whole.
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Children's experiences and voices are underrepresented in academic literature and professional practice around domestic violence and abuse.
“Children's experiences and voices are underrepresented in academic literature and professional practice around domestic violence and abuse.”
From Beyond “Witnessing”: Children’s Experiences of Coercive Control in Domestic Violence and Abuse (2018) · cites this paper as Øverlien, 2011
There is a need to shift from the passive framing of children as witnesses to a more complex understanding of them as both victims and agents, through understanding how children make sense of and work with their experiences of domestic violence.
“Some researchers have pointed out the need to shift from this passive framing of children as it ess to a o e o ple u de sta di g of the as oth i ti s a d as age ts, th ough an understanding of how children make sense of and work with their experiences of domestic violence (Øverlien, 2011;Øverlien and Hydén, 2009;Mullender et al., 2003;Authors et al., 2016b;Authors, 2015).”
From Children’s embodied experience of living with domestic violence: “I’d go into my panic, and shake, really bad” (2016) · cites this paper as Øverlien, 2011
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- Authors
- Øverlien, C.
- Venue
- Child & Family Social Work
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-12-19
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 71-80
- ISSN
- 1356-7500 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1728920601
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 0.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Child & Family Social Work (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Child Welfare and Adoption
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Keywords
- women's shelters, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, children exposed to violence, children's perspectives, women's perspectives, conflicting perspectives, discourse analysis, Norway
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