Social Sciences

Women experiencing intimate partner violence may disclose abuse to personal contacts, approach institutions, or use both. We examined the frequency, correlates, and combinations of these responses in Ecuador. The 2019 National Survey on Family Relationships and Gender-Based Violence against Women provided data on 4475 married or cohabiting women aged 15 years or older reporting current-partner violence. Survey-weighted latent class analysis identified groups with similar combinations of six types of personal and institutional contact among 2346 women who reported at least one type. A separate survey-weighted logistic regression examined characteristics associated with disclosure or institutional contact. Across the full sample, 49.34% reported neither. Latent class analysis suggested three profiles among women who identified a source. Focused informal disclosure (41.09%) usually involved one category of personal contact, while diversified network response (55.41%) involved broader personal networks and some institutional contact. Multisector institutional response (3.49%) combined police or emergency services, justice services, and personal contacts. These percentages describe the latent class sample. The multisector institutional response profile represented 1.74% of the full sample and had the highest prevalence of several violence indicators and consequences. Physical and repeated violence were associated with higher odds of any response, and rural residence with lower odds. In a secondary comparison, institutional contact was more common among separated or divorced women reporting former-partner violence than among women in ongoing unions (22.84% versus 9.69%). The profiles show how personal networks remain involved across different levels of institutional contact. Longitudinal research should examine which combinations sustain assistance and improve safety.

Social media platforms collect, process, and monetise personal data on a scale that has made control over personal information a central concern for users and regulators. Research on digital sovereignty has largely addressed this concern at the level of states and institutions, leaving the individual user’s experience of control comparatively unexamined. This study examines how perceived personal data controllability, an affordance of platform interfaces, is associated with control-based privacy beliefs, trust in the platform, and anxiety. A scenario-based survey was conducted with 308 Saudi participants, who evaluated a simulated social networking platform designed to emphasise privacy and user control. Digital sovereignty was conceptualised as users’ claim to self-determination over their data on platforms, with control-based privacy beliefs as one psychological expression of this claim. Stronger perceived controllability was positively associated with control-based privacy beliefs and trust and negatively associated with anxiety. Control-based privacy beliefs moderated the association between controllability and anxiety, which was stronger among participants who held these beliefs less strongly, but did not moderate the association with trust. Control-based privacy beliefs thus function as a boundary condition for users’ affective—but not evaluative—responses to platform design.

Norway has been found in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in a number of child welfare cases, particularly concerning restrictions on family life and contact between children in care and their biological parents. This study employs a critical discursive psychological approach to analyse qualitative data from 12 interviews with municipal child welfare managers. It examines how managers interpret and negotiate the reported implications of the ECtHR rulings for contact assessments and the relationship between reunification, family life and stability. The analysis identified three interpretative repertoires. The first concerned managers’ understanding of the essence of the ECtHR rulings and the need to revise previously standardised practices. The second concerned professional capacity and organisational support as conditions for implementing legal and professional changes. The third concerned the negotiation of reunification, family life, stability, continuity and protection in individual contact assessments. The findings show how managers acknowledge the need for reform while defending professional judgement and responsibility for safeguarding children’s best interests. Relational competence, organisational support, professional networks and training are described as important conditions for responding to the rulings. The study does not independently measure the impact of the rulings but shows how they have become an important reference point for interpreting and justifying changes in Norwegian child welfare practice.