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Abstract
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This article presents an analysis of the family context and everyday negotiations
around risk, safety and danger between children and parents in four families drawn
from a larger qualitative study. The challenges of analysing accounts from several
family members are highlighted. Case study families are described; and fragments of
their interwoven individual and shared biographies, on which respondents regularly
drew to legitimate risk-related beliefs and practices, are outlined. The dynamic,
fluid and contingent nature of risk construction and reconstruction in everyday
family life is discussed and three main themes explored: establishing ‘the
bottom line’; assumptions, collusions and contradictions around age,
siblinghood and time; and contextualizing risk in the conduct of others. The authors
conclude that, just as with childhood itself, it is important also to contextualize
‘risk’ within socioeconomic, cultural and institutional
frameworks; and that, for most children, their families both constitute one such
context and mediate wider social structures. |