This study focuses on the functional identities of legal witness, legal victim, and legal perpetrator and their co-construction in the forensic interviews that take place after allegations of child sexual abuse have been made. I argue that while these are inter-related identities, the focus of their constitution and the direction of their constructional dependencies is determined by the event context. Nineteen transcripts of forensic interviews involving children ages 3 to 12 were collected during a three-month period at a children's center in a western state.Legal witness as an identity of performance, is constituted in performance. Interview processes socialize children to these performances. Ritualized sequences within interviews also provide evidence that children have the qualities required of a legal witness. Children are constructed as legal victims in interview processes that establish they have been acted upon according to specific actions defined in the law. This mutually constitutes the legal perpetrator. Children, however, resist both interpellation as a legal victim and elements of the process of the interview affecting how they are perceived as legal witnesses. Analysis also reveals that the purpose of the interview within the extended legal process inherently shapes the accounts and narratives that are co-produced.The addition of a third interview participant is also considered. Second interviewers provided a complex co-construction process that can support the constitution of the legal witness identity. Relatives of the child also provide a complex process. If they are perceived as co-authoring the narratives or accounts, however, they may negatively affect the legal witness identity. The addition of an interpreter can facilitate the child's co-construction as a legal witness. As pre-trial events, forensic interviews are not subject to trial requirements for trained interpreters. In the case considered here, the untrained interpreter produced language that was less precise, more personal, and had the potential to affect the legal implication of questions.Finally, I discuss the therapeutic, theoretical, and the social, cultural, and political implications of the study.

Submitted by Alison Vanceto (alison-vanceto@hotmail.com) on 2016-09-16T11:56:52Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissCH.pdf: 1748734 bytes, checksum: 0d543a8d16752ef3fc9358e5aa468042 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-16T19:31:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissCH.pdf: 1748734 bytes, checksum: 0d543a8d16752ef3fc9358e5aa468042 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-16T19:31:33Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissCH.pdf: 1748734 bytes, checksum: 0d543a8d16752ef3fc9358e5aa468042 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-16T19:31:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissCH.pdf: 1748734 bytes, checksum: 0d543a8d16752ef3fc9358e5aa468042 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-09 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / This Master’s thesis is a compendium of three scientific texts. Each one describes different steps of the study in order to contribute to the validation of the NICHD protocol in Brazilian context. The first article describes a systematic international literature review regarding to the appropriate listening and strategies for investigation of child sexual violence, with special emphasis on NICHD Protocol (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development). This protocol is recognized by the international specialized literature as one of the most appropriate tools for structured interviews with children victims of violence. It appears as a structured instrument, providing superior information to those obtained by interviews with fewer open questions. The result of this review showed that NICHD protocol produce more precise answers compared to others, with more both detailed and rich reports and with more revelations. The second text produced was related to a pilot study conducted to evaluate a training course on the NICHD Protocol to Brazilian psychologists, with the purpose of analyzing the quality of information obtained in interviews with children in cases of suspected sexual abuse. The results indicated that interviews that included sexual abuse revelations presented both a satisfactory amount of open questions and forensic relevance detail, showing good quality information. Those findings suggest a future application of the protocol to a higher number of participants in order to compare the quality information obtained during the interview before and after the course. Finally, the last article evaluated a training about the NICHD protocol offered to 15 professionals (psychologists and social workers) of two Brazilian cities. The results suggest that after training, there was a significant increase in using open-ended questions during interviews, as well as significant increase rate in forensic relevance details regarding to direct questions. The participant’s evaluation was positive. Limitations founded refer to small number of participants during the training and consequently low quantity of interviews, as well as intrinsic problems to the Brazilian forensic context, which foreseeing direct and suggestive questions during children testimony. / A presente dissertação foi escrita no formato de um compêndio de três textos científicos. Cada artigo descreve uma etapa do estudo, que teve como objetivo capacitar profissionais para o uso do Protocolo NICHD, contribuindo para a validação do mesmo no contexto brasileiro. O primeiro artigo descreve uma revisão de literatura internacional, que se propôs a realizar uma revisão sistemática de literatura a respeito da escuta adequada e das estratégias para investigação da violência sexual infantil, com especial ênfase no Protocolo NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development), reconhecido pela literatura internacional especializada como um dos instrumentos mais adequados para a entrevista estruturada com crianças vítimas de violência. O protocolo apresenta-se como um instrumento estruturado, transmitindo informações de qualidade superior àquelas obtidas por entrevistas com menos questões abertas. Como resultado foi constatado que ao utilizar o Protocolo NICHD foram produzidas respostas mais precisas, com relatos mais detalhados e ricos e com maior número de revelações. O segundo artigo visou conduzir um estudo piloto para avaliar um curso de capacitação sobre o Protocolo NICHD a psicólogos brasileiros, analisando a qualidade de informações obtidas em entrevistas realizadas com crianças em casos de suspeita de abuso sexual. Os resultados indicaram que as entrevistas que incluíram revelações de abuso sexual apresentaram um índice satisfatório de perguntas abertas e detalhes de relevância forense, evidenciando informações de qualidade. Assim, sugeriu-se uma futura aplicação com maior número de participantes e comparações na qualidade da entrevista realizadas antes e depois do curso. Por fim, o último artigo teve como objetivo avaliar uma capacitação oferecida a 15 profissionais (psicólogas e assistentes sociais) de dois municípios brasileiros. Os resultados sugerem que após a capacitação com o Protocolo, houve um aumento significativo no uso de perguntas abertas nas entrevistas realizadas, bem como aumento significativo da taxa de detalhes de relevância forense nas respostas às questões diretas. A avaliação dos participantes foi, no geral, positiva. Limitações do estudo referem-se ao número reduzido de participantes e de entrevistas realizadas, bem como problemas intrínsecos ao contexto forense brasileiro, com interferência de perguntas diretas e sugestivas por operadores de Direito durante o Depoimento Especial da criança.

L’agression sexuelle (AS) commise envers les enfants est un sujet complexe à enquêter et les allégations reposent souvent exclusivement sur le témoignage de l’enfant. Cependant, même quand l’enfant divulgue une AS, il peut être réticent à révéler certains détails personnels et gênants de l’AS à un étranger. Étant donné qu’il n'est pas toujours possible d'obtenir le consentement de filmer et qu’il est relativement difficile de mesurer l’attitude non verbale de l’enfant et celui de l’enquêteur au cours des entrevues d’investigations, cette recherche a été novatrice dans sa création d’échelles verbales de telles attitudes. Afin de déterminer la corrélation de l’attitude des enquêteurs et la collaboration des enfants, 90 entrevues d’enfants âgés de 4 à 13 ans ont été analysées. Les entrevues ont été enregistrées sur bande audio, transcrites et codifiées à l'aide des sous-échelles verbales d'attitudes soutenantes et non-soutenantes des enquêteurs ainsi que d’attitudes de résistance et de coopération de la part de l'enfant. La proportion des détails sur l’AS fournie par les enfants a également été calculée. Afin de comparer les entrevues avec et sans le protocole du National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), une MANCOVA, contrôlant pour l’âge de l’enfant et la proportion de questions ouvertes, démontre tel qu’attendu que les entrevues avec le protocole obtiennent plus de détails fournis à la suite des questions ouvertes que les entrevues sans le protocole. Cependant, aucune différence ne ressort quant aux attitudes de l’enfant et celle de l’enquêteur. Afin de trouver le meilleur prédicteur de la quantité de détails dévoilés par les enfants, une analyse de régression multiple hiérarchique a été faite. Après avoir contrôlé pour l'âge de l’enfant, l’utilisation du protocole et la proportion de questions ouvertes, la résistance de l’enfant et l’attitude non-soutenante de l’enquêteur expliquent 28 % supplémentaire de la variance, tandis que la variance totale expliquée par le modèle est de 58%. De plus, afin de déterminer si la collaboration de l’enfant et l’attitude de l’enquêteur varient en fonction de l’âge des enfants, une MANOVA démontre que les enquêteurs se comportent similairement, quel que soit l'âge des enfants. Ceci, malgré le fait que les jeunes enfants sont généralement plus réticents et coopèrent significativement moins bien que les préadolescents. Finalement, une régression multiple hiérarchique démontre que le soutien de l'enquêteur est le meilleur prédicteur de la collaboration des enfants, au-delà des caractéristiques de l'enfant et de l’AS. Bien que l’utilisation du protocole NICHD ait permis des progrès considérables dans la manière d’interroger les enfants, augmentant la proportion de détails obtenus par des questions ouvertes/rappel libre et amplifiant la crédibilité du témoignage, l’adhésion au protocole n’est pas en soi suffisante pour convaincre des jeunes enfants de parler en détail d’une AS à un inconnu. Les résultats de cette thèse ont une valeur scientifique et contribuent à enrichir les connaissances théoriques sur les attitudes de l'enfant et de l'enquêteur exprimées lors des entrevues. Même si les enquêteurs de cette étude offrent plus de soutien aux enfants résistants, indépendamment de leur âge, pour promouvoir la divulgation détaillée de l’AS, de meilleures façons de contrer les attitudes de résistance exprimées par les jeunes enfants et une minimisation des attitudes non-soutenantes lors des entrevues sont nécessaires. / Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is a complex subject to investigate and an alleged victim’s disclosure is crucial as it may be the only substantial evidence for investigators to establish their case. However, even when CSA is revealed, children may be reluctant to reveal personal and often embarrassing details to a stranger during a forensic interview. As it is not always possible to obtain consent to film and it is relatively hard to measure children’s and interviewers’ non-verbal attitudes during forensic interviews, this doctoral dissertation was innovative in its creation of verbal scales of such attitudes. In order to determine whether interviewers’ attitudes correlates with children’s collaboration during forensic interviews, 90 children ranging from 4 to 13 years of age were analysed. Interviews were audio taped, transcribed and then codified using verbal subscales of interviewers’ supportive and non-supportive attitudes as well as children's cooperative and reluctant attitudes. The proportion of details provided by the children in regards to the SA was calculated. To determine if differences exist between National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol and Non-Protocol interviews, a MANCOVA was conducted controlling for children’s age and the proportion of open-ended questions. As expected Protocol interviews obtained significantly more details from open-ended prompts than Non-Protocol interviews. However, it showed no differences according to children’s and interviewer’s attitudes. To find the variable that has the greatest impact on the quantity of detail disclosed by children, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted. After controlling for children’s age, NICHD Protocol and proportion of open-ended questions which are known to increase the quantity of details disclosed; children’s reluctance and interviewers’ non-supportive attitudes contributed to an additional 28% of the variance, when the total variance explained by the model as a whole was 58%. Moreover, to determine whether children’s collaboration and interviewers’ attitudes vary according to the child’s age-group a MANOVA was conducted. It revealed that interviewers behaved similarly irrespective of children’s age, even though younger children were generally more reluctant and cooperated significantly less than pre-adolescents. Finally, to determine which variables regarding child and SA characteristics, as well as interviewers’ attitudes, will have a greater chance at predicting children’s collaboration, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted. It showed that an interviewer’s support was a stronger correlating variable than children’s and SA characteristics in predicting children’s collaboration. While we believe that the development of the NICHD Protocol has enabled considerable progress in the way children are interviewed leading to more details obtained from free recall strategies, and thus leading to more credible testimonies. However, adherence to the Protocol is simply not sufficient to convince young reluctant children to talk in details about the SA to a stranger. This dissertation results have great scientific value as it enhances the theoretical underpinnings of the attitudes expressed by both the child and the interviewer during forensic interviews. Although, interviewers in this study did offer more support to reluctant children, regardless of their age, researchers need to find better ways to deal with young children’s reluctance as well as encourage practitioners to minimize non-supportive attitudes.