Unfit, Unsuitable, Unworthy: The Social Construction of Child Protection in the United States and the Role of Rhetoric in Justifying Child Removal

Abstract

Child protection has been an issue promoted throughout U.S. history, but with increasing concerns over intensive surveillance practices resulting in the disproportionate removal of children from families of color and families living in poverty, it becomes important to explore the social construction of the child protection and the rhetoric used to justify child removal. In my thesis, through the application of Hilgartner and Bosk’s (1988) Public Arenas Model and the use of rhetorical analysis as modeled by Joel Best (1987), I attempt to reveal the ways in which rhetoric developed within particular public arenas allowed for minority and low-income parents to be disproportionately deemed “unfit”, “unsuitable”, and “unworthy” to care for their own children.