to what extent can child abuse be situationally determined
To What Extent Can Child Abuse Be Said To Be Situationally Determined? ‘Child neglect may be defined as a condition in which a caretaker responsible for the child either deliberately or by extraordinary inattentiveness permits the child to experience avoidable present suffering and/or fails to provide one or more of the ingredients generally deemed essential for developing a person’s physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities. ... It is the context in which child abuse and maltreatment occurs which must be examined in order to determine the influence of situation upon the incidence of abuse. Child abuse falls into different catergorisations and the experience on an individual level differs according to these social catorgarisations and the actual actions involved in each form of abuse with the gerenal categories of neglect, physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse being subdivisions of child abuse and maltreatment. However, the social catorgarisation and identification of child abuse and the associated actions of each form must be recognised as differing between cultures and across historical time frames. When examining the extend to which child abuse is situationally determined, cultural differences offer a minefield of difficulties for researchers as understanding of such differing practices between cultures is problematic when approached with a modern westernised perspective. This is highlighted in the issue that most contemporary literature regarding child abuse and maltreatment focuses upon modern industrialised western societies. For the purpose of this piece of work it is these contemporary western societies which will be examined regarding child abuse and maltreatment and the issue of these phenomena as being situationally determined. The contemporary societal views regarding child abuse differ between various cultures, with modern western society viewing practices of different cultures, such as those of the binding of a female childs feet from birth in eastern cultures or the circumcision of female children in African nations, as abusive and damaging to a child where as these cultures view such practices as acceptable and the social norm. The different acceptable practices of vartious cultures reflects the differing attitudes to child rearing world wide and parallels the changing attitudes to child rearing practices witnessed over historical time periods.