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- Title
When Vocabularies of Motive Fail: The Example of Fatal Child Abuse.
- Authors
Margolin, Leslie
- Abstract
Many social theorists emphasize people's capacity for empathic understanding shared meanings, and forgiveness. They argue that norm violators can achieve social redemption by offering excuses and justifications. The findings from this study show that this is not always true. Evidence from the case records of caretakers accused of killing their children showed that the majority did not try to explain their actions by invoking excuses and justifications. They either pretended they had no idea what happened to the child or constructed a fictional cause of the child's death which made themselves appear innocent. The minority who attempted to explain why they killed a child received little or no forgiveness. These findings show that some norm violations cannot be translated into acceptable vocabularies of motive.
- Subjects
CHILD mortality; DOMESTIC violence; ABUSED children; CHILD abuse; CLEMENCY; EXCUSES
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 1990, Vol 13, Issue 4, p373
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF00989410