Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Notes on Contributors
- Editor’s Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- 1 Bringing Theory Home: Thinking About Child Sexual Exploitation
- 2 Moving Beyond Discourses of Agency, Gain and Blame: Reconceptualising Young People’S Experiences of Sexual Exploitation
- 3 Child Sexual Exploitation, Discourse Analysis and why we Still Need to Talk About Prostitution
- 4 Contextual Safeguarding: Theorising the Contexts of Child Protection and Peer Abuse
- 5 ‘Losing Track of Morality’: Understanding Online Forces and Dynamics Conducive to Child Sexual Exploitation
- 6 Understanding Adolescent Development in the Context of Child Sexual Exploitation
- 7 Some Psychodynamic Understandings of Child Sexual Exploitation
- 8 Understanding Trauma and its Relevance to Child Sexual Exploitation
- 9 Social Support, Empathy and Ecology: A Theoretical Underpinning for Working with Young People who have Suffered Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation
- 10 Using an Intersectional Lens to Examine the Child Sexual Exploitation of Black Adolescents
- 11 What’s Gender Got to do With It? Sexual Exploitation of Children as Patriarchal Violence
- 12 Understanding Models of Disability to Improve Responses to Children with Learning Disabilities
- 13 Some Concluding Thoughts
- Index
1 - Bringing Theory Home: Thinking About Child Sexual Exploitation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Notes on Contributors
- Editor’s Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- 1 Bringing Theory Home: Thinking About Child Sexual Exploitation
- 2 Moving Beyond Discourses of Agency, Gain and Blame: Reconceptualising Young People’S Experiences of Sexual Exploitation
- 3 Child Sexual Exploitation, Discourse Analysis and why we Still Need to Talk About Prostitution
- 4 Contextual Safeguarding: Theorising the Contexts of Child Protection and Peer Abuse
- 5 ‘Losing Track of Morality’: Understanding Online Forces and Dynamics Conducive to Child Sexual Exploitation
- 6 Understanding Adolescent Development in the Context of Child Sexual Exploitation
- 7 Some Psychodynamic Understandings of Child Sexual Exploitation
- 8 Understanding Trauma and its Relevance to Child Sexual Exploitation
- 9 Social Support, Empathy and Ecology: A Theoretical Underpinning for Working with Young People who have Suffered Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation
- 10 Using an Intersectional Lens to Examine the Child Sexual Exploitation of Black Adolescents
- 11 What’s Gender Got to do With It? Sexual Exploitation of Children as Patriarchal Violence
- 12 Understanding Models of Disability to Improve Responses to Children with Learning Disabilities
- 13 Some Concluding Thoughts
- Index
Summary
Introduction
I want this book to be an opportunity to ask why theory matters to our work with children affected by sexual exploitation. Following revelations of some of the painful realities facing children affected by child sexual exploitation (CSE), there has been a welcome recognition that CSE is one of three main national threats to the country (Gov.uk 2015) and is a form of child sexual abuse (CSA) (see DfE 2017). Alongside this, we have seen a plethora of work exploring the evidence base for interventions looking at what works to prevent and respond to CSE and CSA (see later in the chapter). This focus on ‘how’ to prevent and respond to CSE is essential. I hope here to engage with the equally important question of ‘why?’ What is informing the way that we approach the work and target our interventions?
Whether readers are considering working with children affected by sexual exploitation and related issues, or are firmly embedded in years of practice, I want the book to help ask about the rationale for their interest in this area of work. The answer may appear straightforward. It is to stop children being exploited and to work with those affected to recover in whatever way possible. But even this universal aim of stopping children being exploited may, to some extent, be socially constructed and influenced by political persuasions of the time (see Beckett, Phoenix and Hanson in this volume). Within this universal aim, there may be nuances specific to particular individuals’ interests and expertise. It may be that someone is particularly motivated to challenge patriarchal domination or other power imbalances expressed through violence against children (see Coy, Bernard, and Smeaton in this volume), or/and is wanting to explore the impact of insecure early attachments that may lead children to be exploited through promises of love (see Luxmoore in this volume). Even though we have longestablished theories about CSA, noting how sexualised trauma impacts so negatively on children affected (Finkelhor 1984), I am keen for us to further apply this (see Hickle in this volume) and other various nuances from different perspectives into our work.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Child Sexual Exploitation: Why Theory Matters , pp. 1 - 22Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2019