Out of the Cupboard: kids, domestic violence, and schools

Abstract

Drawing from two large‐scale ethnographic investigations in which we interview poor and working‐class white girls and women living in post‐industrial cities in the Northeastern US, we argue that violence of all sorts is deeply embedded inside poor and working‐class white communities, domestic violence in particular. The date reveal that children experience, witness and learn the rhythms by which their mothers, siblings and, perhaps, they are beaten. While in the US we have produced an enormous legal infrastructure of mandatory reporting, in the event of suspicion of child abuse, we have — as educators — defaulted to the law and not engaged a fully developed educational project through which to respond to the problem. Although deeply contested, a public space that is accessible to poor and working‐class youth and where abuse in the home may be discussed and analyzed may be schools, yet many educators do not deal with this issue at all.