How children and their families construct and negotiate risk, safety and danger.

Backett-Milburn, Kathryn; Harden, Jeni

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the family context and everyday negotiations around risk, safety and danger between children and parents in four families drawn from a larger qualitative study. The challenges of analysing accounts from several family members are highlighted. Case study families are described; and fragments of their interwoven individual and shared biographies, on which respondents regularly drew to legitimate risk-related beliefs and practices, are outlined. The dynamic, fluid and contingent nature of risk construction and reconstruction in everyday family life is discussed and three main themes explored: establishing ‘the bottom line’; assumptions, collusions and contradictions around age, siblinghood and time; and contextualizing risk in the conduct of others. The authors conclude that, just as with childhood itself, it is important also to contextualize ‘risk’ within socioeconomic, cultural and institutional frameworks; and that, for most children, their families both constitute one such context and mediate wider social structures.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2004-11
• Deposit Date: Jan 29, 2008
• Print ISSN: 0907-5682
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 429-447
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568204047105
• Keywords: Children; Families; Risk; Danger; Safety; Negotiation
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/2221
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0907568204047105