Racialized Perceptions and Child Neglect
Date
2012
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Children and Youth Services Review
Abstract
This paper contributes to the growing literature on the modeling of racialized perceptions by considering the controversy about racial disproportionality in child neglect. Child neglect, unlike outcomes in traffic stops or rental markets or job interviews, comes within the framework of social workers. Historically, social workers have been white females whose work is driven by compassion, dedication to the disadvantaged, and commitment to equality. Yet, in child welfare we see wide racially disparate outcomes just as one sees in other spheres of society, such as the criminal justice system, labor markets, housing markets, or credit markets. Moreover, one rarely sees the “smoking gun” of bigoted, racially offensive behavior on the part of child protective service (CPS) workers. Indeed, charges of racial discrimination or racial bias by such workers often produce great pain and anguish within the social work profession (Drake & Rank, 2009). Thus, the methodology we employ in this paper is designed to uncover unconscious and underlying perceptions that, through training or interventions, offer the potential to change behavior. A further contribution of this paper is that it produces evidence that there is a relationship between indices of racialized perceptions and observed outcomes, such as racial disproportionality, in substantiated maltreatment across counties. Thus, although it is helpful to produce new ways of measuring racialized perceptions, what is more important is being able to empirically establish whether there is any relationship between these perceptions on one hand and actual outcomes on the other. This paper models racialized perceptions of child protective service workers and tests the hypothesis that these perceptions contribute to the racial disproportionality in reported and/or substantiated child maltreatment. (Author Text)
Description
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Keywords
child welfare, research, race, reporting, case workers, substantiation, child protective services, child abuse
Citation
Ards, S. D., Myers Jr, S. L., Ray, P., Kim, H. E., Monroe, K., & Arteaga, I. (2012). Racialized perceptions and child neglect. Children and youth services review, 34(8), 1480-1491.