*Historical Background*

In Denmark, the moral panic over CSA at childcare facilities began in 1997/1998, during the important "Vadstrupgaard case," in which a male teaching assistant was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for the sexual abuse of 20 children at a kindergarten. This first major public case of this sort elicited a public outcry in Danish society, and undermined trust in Danish childcare facilities [35,36]. However, some claimed that the case was a miscarriage of justice, arguing that there was no concrete evidence, that the police made major mistakes in their investigation when interviewing the children, and finally, that the children's testimony was uncritically believed during the case [36–39]. In the aftermath of the Vadstrupgaard case, CSA received significant attention from the media, the public, politicians, and children's organizations, and considerable juridical, political, and institutional e fforts have been made since to prevent CSA in Danish society. For instance, the vetting of childcare sta ff became possible in 2001 and was mandated by law in 2005.

In the years following the Vadstrupgaard case, the number of allegations of CSA against childcare sta ff increased dramatically. Before this case, allegations of CSA were rare at Danish childcare institutions; BUPL rarely received more than one such report per year. In the two years immediately following the Vadstrupgaard case, from 1998 to 2000, BUPL received twenty-five reports, only one of which ended with a conviction. BUPL considered it probable that more members were accused of CSA during that period, since at that time the union did not centrally register all allegations against members. During that period, the Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educator assistants (PMF) received 35 reports of such cases, two of which ended in convictions. In the majority of the reports registered with both unions, the allegations against members did not lead to charges being pressed [40]. In those years, several cases were publicized by the media, and newspaper articles from that period spoke of the "many cases" of CSA in Danish childcare institutions [39,41–45], and experts and stakeholders discussed whether a huge problem and taboo had been exposed, or whether this reflected a general hysteria [36,42,46].

The existence of a "before and after Vadstrupgaard" is illustrated by the contrasting ways in which male workers in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) were discussed before and after the case. A 1996 discussion paper for the European Commission Network on Childcare, "Men as workers in Childcare Services," stated, "A particular argumen<sup>t</sup> against employing men is that men may sexually abuse children. This argumen<sup>t</sup> is particularly prominent in the United Kingdom. It does not appear at all in the Danish debates" [47] (p. 23). However, after the Vadstrupgaard case, the association between men and the risk of CSA at childcare facilities became central to the public debate in Denmark. In a newspaper article, a leading Danish psychologist claimed that "pedophiles are everywhere" and "quickly find their way to preschool institutions," and warned against naïvely hiring men at childcare facilities [41] (p. 24). Other articles reported that worried parents were uneasy about male childcare workers, or raised the question of whether men should care for children professionally at all (e.g., [42,44,48]). Meanwhile, experts and leading figures from unions, teachers' colleges, the police, politics, and child welfare organizations warned against the "stigmatization" and "hysteria" evolving around male childcare workers [43,44,49–53]. The male childcare workers spoke of their fears or were presented in the media as perplexed about their new stigmatization and the risk of wrongful allegations. Male students in ECEC programs reported feeling vulnerable before practicums, and teachers' colleges around the country held seminars on how to ensure workplace security [42–45,50–54].

In the newspaper articles cited above, and in the literature of that time, we found indications that it was in the aftermath of the Vadstrupgaard case that guidelines to protect against CSA and wrongful allegations were introduced to Danish childcare facilities.<sup>4</sup> They grew out of an interaction between a bottom-up movement by perplexed institutions that wished to protect themselves and the children in their care, and the influences of agents eager to help the institutions and their male workers. A 2000 anthology that addressed the Vadstrupgaard case, read, "In crèches, kindergartens and BASCs all over the country, sta ff discuss new workflows with the aim of ensuring that male teachers, in particular, are not alone with the children at any time" [36] (p. 11). Newspaper articles reported on institutions that established guidelines for sta ff, or special guidelines for men [42,46,50,51]. According to BUPL and PMF, many male childcare professionals asked the unions for guidelines that described which behaviors were appropriate around children and, in particular, those that would protect against wrongful allegations; for instance, the men asked whether it was appropriate to have a child sit on the lap [43,54]. PMF advised the men to keep in mind the risk of misconstruction, particularly in physical matters, and recommended that two colleagues be present [43]. The director of BUPL stated that male sta ff began to question their behavior, wondering whether to close the bathroom door while toileting [52]. In 1998, the municipality of Gladsaxe hosted a meeting for male childcare workers, during which a BUPL representative advised male sta ff on how to avoid misconstruction. For instance, the men were advised that hugging children was acceptable, but kissing was not [43]. However, in a 1999 pamphlet, BUPL and PMF jointly warned against control mechanisms, gendered practices, and the reduction of physical contact at childcare facilities, instead recommending strong leadership and an open culture [56]. These historical sources reveal how the guidelines that were well established at the majority of institutions in our survey in 2012 began cropping up in the years after Vadstrupgaard.

<sup>4</sup> In point of fact, a touch policy existed in Danish public primary and lower secondary education for a number of years. In 1929, The Danish Ministry of Education sent out a so-called "Touch Circular," prohibiting all kinds of touch—friendly or unfriendly—between teachers and pupils, unless it was absolutely necessary. The policy was withdrawn in 1987 [55].

#### **2. Materials and Methods**
