College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, HKU Centennial Campus, PokFuLam Road, Hong Kong.
Child Abuse Negl. 2023 Apr;138:106068. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106068. Epub 2023 Feb 8.
Over the past 20 years, there has been a growing commitment to strengthen community norms-to foster informal support for families and enhance community commitment to protect children from child abuse and neglect. The current study examined the relationship between child neglect and normative interpretations of the dominant cultural value of abiriwatia in Ghana. It was hypothesized that the norms of abiriwatia were associated with lower incidence of child neglect.
We used a random, stratified four-stage cluster design to select a nationally representative sample of 1100 female caregivers in Ghana. Norms of the cultural value of abiriwatia were measured using a new 11-item Likert scale questionnaire developed by the authors, and child neglect was measured using the Conflict Tactics Scale.
Factor analysis of the abiriwatia scale retained three factors, community authority, collective childcare, and lineage, as the core norms of abiriwatia. We found that the abiriwatia norm of community authority was associated with fewer instances of child neglect. Norms of community responsibility for childcare were negatively associated with child neglect frequency (B = -0.31, p < .05). However, the relationship between the abiriwatia norm of lineage and child neglect was positive (B = 0.24, p < .05).
The protective associations among the norms of community authority and collective childcare and child neglect suggest that traditional practices that strengthen and enforce the collective norms of abiriwatia, including storytelling, family byelaws, community durbars (community meetings), taboos, and reciprocal farming activities (nnoboa) could be protective against neglect.
在过去的 20 年中，人们越来越致力于加强社区规范——培养对家庭的非正式支持，并增强社区保护儿童免受虐待和忽视的承诺。本研究考察了加纳主流文化价值观“abiriwatia”的规范与忽视儿童之间的关系。研究假设“abiriwatia”规范与较低的儿童忽视发生率有关。
我们使用随机、分层四阶段聚类设计，在加纳选择了一个具有全国代表性的 1100 名女性照顾者样本。使用作者开发的新的 11 项李克特量表问卷来衡量“abiriwatia”文化价值观的规范，使用冲突策略量表来衡量儿童忽视情况。
“abiriwatia”量表的因子分析保留了三个因素，即社区权威、集体育儿和谱系，作为“abiriwatia”的核心规范。我们发现，社区权威的“abiriwatia”规范与较少的儿童忽视实例有关。社区对儿童保育的责任规范与儿童忽视频率呈负相关（B = -0.31，p <.05）。然而，“abiriwatia”谱系规范与儿童忽视之间的关系呈正相关（B = 0.24，p <.05）。
社区权威和集体育儿规范之间的保护关联与儿童忽视之间的关联表明，强化和执行“abiriwatia”集体规范的传统做法，包括讲故事、家庭法规、社区集会、禁忌和互惠农业活动（nnoboa），可能具有保护作用，防止忽视。
