ילדים בסיכון: בחינת מיתוסים לאור גישה מודעת-הקשר.
At-risk children: revisiting myths in the risk discourse in light of a context-informed perspective

With an English abstract.
This article proposes a context-informed perspective to the study ofchildren’s risk and protection. This perspective was developed from ourlarge-scale qualitative research project in Israel that explored perceptions andconstructions of child risk and protection among parents and children ofvarious cultures and communities in Israel, and also among the socialworkers who serve these communities. We present three correlations –racism and exclusion, religion and spirituality, and political conflict andviolence – to illustrate our conceptualization. We revisit the ontologicalnature of the categories of child risk and protection by deconstructing three prevalent myths identified in the risk discourse. We discuss the complexityembedded in risk assessment in a diverse, multi-cultural and multi-contextreality, and we elaborate on the discrepancies and differences betweenparents and professionals, in their values, on the positionality of the observerand on the power relations between them.