“Keeping balance”, “Keeping distance” and “Keeping on with life”: Child positions in divorced families with prolonged conflicts

Jan Stokkebekk, Anette Christine Iversen, Ragnhild Hollekim and Ottar Ness

Children and Youth Services Review, 2019, vol. 102, issue C, 108-119

Abstract: A dominant storyline of divorced families in prolonged conflict is children portrayed as victims without agency. How does this fit with how children position themselves in prolonged post-divorce conflicts? In this qualitative study we pose the following research question; how do children position themselves to challenges in post-divorce family conflict, and how is family conflict positioning children? This paper draws on in-depth interviews with nine children (10-16) years old. Positioning theory is used as an analytic tool to explore child subject positions. Three dominant subject positions emerged in the analysis: keeping balance, keeping distance and keeping on with life. While our analyses show that prolonged conflict is oppressive to the family system, it is argued that each dominant position represents resistance against threats to the child’s wellbeing, dignity and being a child in a family. Implications for child and family services with respect to separated families in prolonged conflict are discussed.

Keywords: Child constructions of family life; Family therapy; Qualitative study; Family conflict; Positioning theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740919300118
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:102:y:2019:i:c:p:108-119

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.021

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().