| Dissertation |
Thesis (D.Soc.Sc.) --NUI, 2012 at Department of Applied Social Studies, UCC. |
| Summary |
The Ryan Report (2009), produced by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, was ground-breaking for Ireland because it was the first inquiry into reformatory and industrial schools to record the abuse of children in care. Its shocking findings were reported on throughout the worldwide media and revealed systematic and systemic abuse of children in care in the Catholic Church-run reformatory and industrial schools throughout the twentieth century until their demise in the 1970s. My hypothesis, in embarking on this study, was that the negative conceptualisation of children in care in twentieth century discourses that affected Irish social policy produced the conditions that resulted in their systematic abuse in the schools. I believe that this negative conceptualisation in social policy in this study in terms of social policy continues to be a current day problem for children in care. I interpret social policy in this study in terms of social policy language and practice as defined by Carabine (2001). This study, based on a Foucauldian ‘history of the present’ methodology adopted archaeological and genealogical discourse analysis methods to identify the dominant discourses in twentieth century social policy (‘Idealist Irish Identity’, ‘Deference to Authority’, ‘Silence’, and ‘Othering’) and the impact of these discourses on the social construction of children in care (Foucault, 1972, 1977; Garrity, 2010). Having identified that children in care were discursively constructed in social policy as social problems and as ‘others’, genealogical discourse analysis methods are used to explore the Ryan Report for evidence of how this discursive construction contributed to the systematic abuse of the children (Carabine, 2001; Skehill, 2004, 2007). The discourse analysis findings demonstrate that power operated through the social policy discourses and that new realities were created as a result. It is argued that the new realities of Shame, Power, Secrecy and Isolation, and Fear created the conditions for systematic abuse of the children in care. This systematic abuse of the children became a ‘technology of power’ that created a ‘governmentality’ of systemic abuse in the schools (Foucault, 1979, 1991a). |
| Add Form |
Also available online via CORA |
| Subject |
Child sexual abuse by clergy -- Ireland.
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Child sexual abuse -- Religious aspects -- Catholic Church.
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Child abuse -- Ireland.
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| Collection |
CORA
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Theses Ph.D.
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Theses Applied Social Science Department
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| Description |
211 pages ; 30 cm. |
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