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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp018k71nm360
Title: Unfit, Unsuitable, Unworthy: The Social Construction of Child Protection in the United States and the Role of Rhetoric in Justifying Child Removal
Authors: Sampayan, Aimee
Advisors: Nelson, Timothy
Department: Sociology
Class Year: 2023
Abstract: Child protection has been an issue promoted throughout U.S. history, but with increasing concerns over intensive surveillance practices resulting in the disproportionate removal of children from families of color and families living in poverty, it becomes important to explore the social construction of the child protection and the rhetoric used to justify child removal. In my thesis, through the application of Hilgartner and Bosk’s (1988) Public Arenas Model and the use of rhetorical analysis as modeled by Joel Best (1987), I attempt to reveal the ways in which rhetoric developed within particular public arenas allowed for minority and low-income parents to be disproportionately deemed “unfit”, “unsuitable”, and “unworthy” to care for their own children.
URI: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp018k71nm360
Type of Material: Princeton University Senior Theses
Language: en
Appears in Collections:Sociology, 1954-2024

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