The evidence cited in this quotation is from ‘the Disciplinarian’ at the notorious Letterfrack Industrial School, which also served as a ‘Junior Reformatory’. Located in the West of Ireland, Letterfrack is a classic example of the ‘othering’ of deprived children, in which the blame for child abuse is displaced on to the victim whose guilt arises from their stigma as ‘poor’. It is also, of course, an example of power dynamics, and a moral metaphor for the Irish Industrial and Reformatory School system. Michel Foucault (1967, 1980) exposed the power dynamics of ‘othering’ as a mechanism for legitimating abuse against ‘problem’ groups in the population by placing them outside the scope of normality and acceptability. Their stigmatised identity, arising from their marginal social status, leads to their social exclusion and victimisation. In this chapter we seek to contextualise the Ryan Report (2009) within a historical framework. We will argue that the power dynamics of child abuse involves a process of ‘othering’, by which a group of deprived children become discursively classified as ‘not one of us’ and, therefore, the object of exclusion, violence and discrimination. This cultural process involves the invocation of power relationships that utilise domination and subordination through ‘technologies of power’, including shame, secrecy, isolation and fear (Cullen, 2012). ‘Othering’ follows the classic lines of discrimination: class, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexuality and age. It places ‘us’ above ‘them’. In relation to children, age is of pivotal importance since it legitimates adult power over children's lives, including the formation of identity, concept of self and social and economic opportunities.

This power of definition is, therefore, formative in terms of shaping the child's life experience and chances as a person. Discrimination springs from such forces (Rismyhr Engelund, 2012). When these power dynamics become pathological, abuse occurs in families, institutions, peer groups and communities. That is why the citizenship rights of children are of such importance in defining adult–child power relations within civil society.