Kulturelle verdier og barnevernet: Ulike forståelser av «barnets beste»

In this chapter I discuss cultural values related to child protection services (CPS). More precisely, I focus on professionals working in CPS and their relationship and meetings with families of immigrant origins. These meetings often reflect different cultural values and understandings of “the best interest of the child” and may cause tensions and misunderstandings. In the Norwegian CPS system, professionals have to draw on professional and personal experiences in decisions concerning the “best interest of the child”. This chapter uses concepts and perspectives from psychological anthropology to throw light on these processes. This is because these perspectives show how ideas and experiences are internalized and embodied as dispositions in habitus that may motivate certain actions when professionals and immigrant families meet. I also discuss whether some reactions and advice from professionals may be understood as ethnocentric because Norwegian parenting values are presented as “better” than parenting values from other countries.