Gender, Parenting and Practices in Child Social Work?: A comparative study fråm England, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden

This article explores ways in which gender equality, family policy and child welfare social workintersect in four countries: England, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Over time, conditions for genderequality in parenting have improved, partly due to family policy developments removing structuralbarriers. These changes, however, vary between countries; Sweden and Norway are consideredmore progressive as compared to the UK and Ireland. Here, we draw on focus group data collectedfrom child welfare social workers in England, Ireland, Norway and Sweden to compare thesedifferent contextual changes and how these are reflected in related social work practice decisions.The focus group discussions were based on a vignette, and thematic analysis was applied. Overall,welfare social workers are aware of the need to support gender equality in parenting, there is aheavy focus on mothers in child welfare practice decisions, and fathers are largely absent. Uniquely,we show that this is influenced by both a strong child-centred perspective, and a gendered riskperspective, in which fathers are seen to pose more risk to the children than mothers.