Selected Aspects of Social and Legal Protection of Children: Expert Approach versus Public Opinion

Social and legal protection of children can be approached from two general positions. The first is expert discourse in the form of various scientific schools or epistemic communities and the other is the position of public opinion. The purpose of this study is to show both the coexistence and potential contradictory nature of these two approaches on selected current issues of social and legal protection of children (boundary of criminal liability, institutional or protective care and replacement care of parentless children). While mapping the expert discourse is based on scientific knowledge of the issue, mapping the public opinion uses data of a representative inquiry aimed at the study of opinions of the Czech population in 2015 (n = 1.050). The study concludes that though public opinion and expert discourse regarding the replacement care of parentless children are to some extent in agreement, there is a difference of opinion on the boundary of criminal liability and institutional or protective care of children and youth with problematic behaviour.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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