"För dom som är stora ska ta hand om dom som är små" : En innehållsanalys om hur våld i nära relationer konstrueras i problemorienterad barnlitteratur

When we discovered that children's literature is actively used in social work as a therapeutic tool for children whom have been exposed to domestic violence, we chose to analyse what these books were mediating to children. The aim of our study was to reveal how domestic violence is constructed in children's literature. Therefore, our focus has been the constructions of violence, constructions of family members and constructions of social workers is portrayed in the literature. Our analysis is based on seven books where domestic violence was a main theme and with children as central characters. The literature we analysed in our study are primarily recommended for children ages three to nine years old. The theoretical tools social constructivism, gender and the normalization process, was our primarily tools to analyse and interpret the results. Furthermore, we based our study on a qualitative content analysis, where we studied written text, as well as illustrations. Our central themes when we coded the literature was domestic violence and construction of gender. We divided our main themes to specific keywords; different types of violence, perpetrator and victim, masculinity and femininity, stereotypes and forcing categories. The result showed findings of violence to be constructed as physical and/or psychological, but also in a small extent, latent violence and neglect. The perpetrator was mainly constructed as a male character and the victim as a female or as a child, linked to gender stereotypes and the forcing categories of perpetrator and victim. Furthermore, the social workers maintain the Swedish society's ideal of a social worker, connected with attributes such as middle-aged female, femininity and Swedish from origin.