“Vulnerability” and Its Unintended Consequences

Jeanette Skoglund () and Renee Thørnblad ()
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Jeanette Skoglund: Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare (RKBU North), Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway
Renee Thørnblad: Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare (RKBU North), Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-10

Abstract: “Vulnerability” is now a widely used term in different settings—from politics and academia to everyday life. In response, a growing body of research has emerged critiquing and challenging the use of the concept in the social sciences. In this paper, we explore the use of the term vulnerability in research on children in out-of-home care and discuss the possible negative consequences of this—for the people involved and for the knowledge produced. Showing some of the problems involved in classifying these children as “particularly vulnerable”, we argue that there is a need for more nuanced understandings of children growing up in out-of-home care.

Keywords: vulnerability; out-of-home care; social sciences; foster care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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