Abstract
Child welfare services are often scrutinized in media reports, but few comparisons of how services are represented in different countries are available. The aim of this article is to assess whether systematic differences in the representation of child welfare services in Norwegian, Danish and German newspapers can be documented. A content analysis of major newspapers in each country revealed considerable differences among the countries. While Norwegian and German child welfare services are mostly presented as implementing adequately severe and timed interventions, their Danish counterparts are heavily criticized for a complete lack of interventions and for implementing interventions too late or not at all. In none of the three countries, interventions of child welfare services are in the reviewed newspapers presented particularly as too severe or too early. The cooperation with other welfare services is described mostly as neutral or negative in Norwegian newspapers, as positive, neutral or negative in German ones and not at all in most Danish articles. Cultural sensitivity in interventions is in the newspaper coverage of all three countries characterized mostly by an omission of the topic altogether. The comparative indicators applied in this study are suggested as powerful tools for further comparisons.
Highlights
We investigate how child welfare services interventions that impede private and family life are represented in Norwegian, Danish and German newspapers
We suggest a set of predefined indicators for transnational comparisons that can be used to identify systematic differences in the representation of child welfare services
A critical portrayal of child welfare services newspaper media is far more common than is a positive portrayal. This critical portrayal commonly illustrates a reluctance to act, rather than an overly eager service attitude exceeding the requirements for the severity of the situation or timing of interventions
Summary
We investigate how child welfare services interventions that impede private and family life are represented in Norwegian, Danish and German newspapers. Protests targeted Norwegian child welfare services taking custody of children from families with immigrant backgrounds, who were allegedly committing child abuse or neglect In response to these organized protests, the director of the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs described the fundamental dilemma for child welfare authorities as interventions either coming too early or too late (Mjaaland, Fjeld, & Rydland, 2015). This basic dilemma is neither limited to a collision of different cultural understandings of children's rights, nor is it only germane to Norwegian child welfare authorities. The potential for conflicts arising from different cultural perceptions of childhood has been analyzed by Williams and Rogers (2016), among others
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