The construction of a narrative space for children in an institutional interview interaction

Abstract

<p>This article examines the space afforded to children’s narratives by the phrasing of questions concerning children’s experiences of domestic violence. The interview questions were posed in an institutional interactive setting in an aim to investigate the domestic violence experienced by children. The interviews were conducted in nine shelters for victims of domestic violence using the iRiSk interview method. The data includes the recorded interviews of 12 children (N = 12) interviewed by a shelter employee. The interviews were found to include questions linguistically constructed around the perspectives of recollection, knowledge and ability. The children primarily reacted to these questioning strategies by applying an answering strategy in which they focused only on the used questioning strategy, therefore limiting their narration. Children may also took the questioning strategy into consideration in their answers before producing their narration, or completely ignored the strategy. Based on the results, the phrasing of these questions constructed in the interaction process set a frame for children’s narrative space in two ways. First, they guided children to re-examine their recollection, knowledge and ability instead of providing a narrative of their experiences of domestic violence. Second, the questions that were originally intended as open-ended ended up being closed-ended instead. The results reveal that there are vulnerabilities related to using a method that supports children’s narration that may pose a challenge to children’s narratives. Professionals should pay attention to any such vulnerable areas when conducting interviews with children.</p>