Conceptions of Professional Authority in Child Protection

Research on authority relations between parents and juveniles showed that authority is differently assigned in different domains. This small-scale investigation extends this theoretical approach to look at the motivation of juveniles to obey authorities. In addition, both the authority relations between parents and juveniles and those between juveniles and the professional authorities of child welfare agencies are analyzed. The different conceptions of the mutual relationships held by 9 juveniles and 9 family supervisors are compared.