The moral gaze: A pluralistic analysis of the impact of social judgement on parents, parenting and access to support, to benefit children and families

Maynard, Emma and Blake-Holmes, Kate (2025) The moral gaze: A pluralistic analysis of the impact of social judgement on parents, parenting and access to support, to benefit children and families. Journal of Family Communication, 34 (4). ISSN 1526-7431

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Abstract

This paper explores parents' narratives about encountering moralized expectations of parenting. We contribute original and significant findings which identify moralized judgement as a determinant between concealing potential child maltreatment and help-seeking to support child protection and welfare. We adopted a rigorous plural qualitative approach of interpretative phenomenological analysis and narrative analysis of N = 24 parents in England, who had experienced parenting support from children's services. Participants revealed that moral judgements from their birth families and child's school were particularly relevant. While fear of moral judgement deterred parents from open dialogue, feeling accepted and valued enabled greater self-efficacy and acceptance of support needs.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data Availability Statement: Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
Uncontrolled Keywords: narrative,ipa,pluralism,qualitative,parenting,parenting support,social judgement,qualitative pluralism,parenting,law,pediatrics, perinatology, and child health ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3308
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Social Work
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Research on Children and Families
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 20 Aug 2025 16:30
Last Modified: 26 Aug 2025 09:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100185
DOI: 10.1002/car.70060

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