Peer-reviewed article
Struggling for open awareness – Trajectories of violence against children from a sociological perspective
Doris Bühler‐Niederberger, Lars Alberth ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines why children's attempts to disclose violence often go unheeded, using the sociological concept of 'awareness context' rather than just 'disclosure'. The researchers analysed 154 communication events from 15 case files involving children who experienced domestic violence. They found that children make repeated attempts to communicate their experiences, but adults often use strategies to silence or ignore these messages, and this pattern continues into adulthood.
Key points
- 64 of 154 communication events involved active disclosure of violence during childhood
- Children made repeated and various attempts to communicate that violence was happening to them
- Adults countered these attempts with different strategies to make affected children inaudible
- Silencing patterns continued throughout the affected persons' lives
- The concept of 'awareness context' captures shared, action-oriented knowledge beyond mere individual disclosure
Limitations
This is a retrospective qualitative study based on case file reconstruction from Germany, so findings may not generalise to other contexts. The study does not explain what specific strategies adults use to silence children or why these strategies are effective.
Abstract
We focus the concept of “awareness context” to capture trajectories of violence against children. This sociological concept of knowledge goes beyond the concept of “disclosure”. It does not focus on the child's mere communication and thus the individuals’ being informed about a fact, but aims at the shared knowledge based on which the interaction takes place. The (asymmetrical) relationships between children and adults can prevent children from influencing such shared and action-oriented knowledge, even if they provide information that they suffer violence. The empirical basis of this article is the reconstruction of 154 events of communication, extracted from 15 extensive case files and categorized in a longitudinal research design. These events comprise messages of victims and the reactions of family members, child protection professionals and other interaction partners to them; 64 events can be considered active disclosing already during childhood. For these histories of long and multiple violence where at least one perpetrator was part of the family household, the following insights can be gained: (a) repeated and various attempts by those affected are undertaken to communicate that violence is happening to them, (b) these attempts are countered by a bundle of different strategies to make those affected inaudible, and (c) this happens throughout the lives of these persons.