Iversen2012

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Iversen2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Iversen2012
Author(s) Clara Iversen
Title Recordability: Resistance and collusion in psychometric interviews with children
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Discursive Psychology, Children, Institutional interaction
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal Discourse Studies
Volume 14
Number 6
Pages 691–709
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/1461445612456997
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Different areas of child welfare work call for psychometric measurement to replace professionals’ judgements with objective numbers. Using data from a national Swedish evaluation of interventions for abused children, the present article investigates child interviewees’ resistance to constraints in psychometric questions. The article contributes to studies of how psychology operates in institutional settings; it looks into the discursive production of the interviewee’s position in the struggle between the principle of recordability and ‘sensitive’ interviewing. The findings suggest that interviewees resist questions’ structural restrictions in the service of telling the interviewer about their lives. Thus, the function of their misalignment is affiliative; it cooperates both with the institutional goal of eliciting information and with the interviewer’s interest in them. However, the interviewer’s solutions to children’s problem presentations remain focused on generating recordable answers. The article concludes that the narrow focus on recordability neglects important opportunities to talk about children’s experiences.

Notes