Everybody’s business: the challenge of constructing a definition of child neglect in late modernity

Drawing on lay constructions of child neglect, this paper explores the challenges late modernity places before us all, lay people and professionals alike, in ensuring that children are not neglected.
My PhD research explored how lay people construct child neglect using data collected from focus group discussions between 46 self-defined lay people. My participants overwhelmingly constructed children in developmental terms, as having physical, emotional, training and supervisory needs which needed to be met
during childhood. Parents were primarily responsible for meeting these needs, and failure to do was constructed as potentially catastrophic for the children concerned and for society as a whole.