Reasoning between Rules and Discretion: A Comparative Study of the Normative Platform for Best Interest Decision-Making on Adoption in England and Norway
The researcher analysed 29 English and 29 Norwegian judgments about adoption from care, examining how decisions about children’s best interests were justified. Qualitative content analysis found similar underlying considerations across the countries, alongside differences in how they were applied. English judgments contained more explicit deliberation, but reasoning varied in both countries. The study examines recorded judicial reasoning rather than children’s later outcomes.
Limitations: A small, selected set of judgments from two different legal systems. Documents convey judicial accounts, not interviews with adoptees. Differences cannot establish the causal effect of legal guidance. Findings concern the period studied, not necessarily current practice.
- Research type
- Qualitative documentary research
- Source reviewed
- Abstract
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Age group
- Children
Study context and review
Age group as recorded: children
Adoption context: Adoption from care / adoption system
Programme: The Acceptability of Child Protection Interventions
Institutional context: No relationship identified in the material checked
No adoption-sector organisational relationship identified from metadata reviewed. Funding and conflicts were not comprehensively audited; this is not confirmation of institutional independence.
Bibliographic screening. Bibliographic relationships are not a bias or safety rating.
Topics: adoption from care, adoption law, adoption system
Review scope: Source checked: Abstract. This does not imply full-text or independent human verification.
Country as recorded: England; Norway
- Funding
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Commissioner
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Funder role
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Declared conflicts
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Recruitment
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Adoptee involvement
- Not yet checked for this entry
Entry: study_982a0df3d6022fee