Dr Amitai Marmor
Job Title
Honorary fellow
Country (Address)
United KingdomResearch interests
Research interests
Dr. Marmor’s areas of expertise include child maltreatment in closed communities, sibling sexual abuse, children’s rights, the intersection of culture and child protection, mandatory reporting policies, and the relationship between fieldwork and academic research. He is particularly interested in context-informed approaches to child protection and developing practices that inform social work, policy-making, and legal frameworks.
Background
Dr. Amitei Marmor is a qualitative researcher at the University of Haifa, Israel, and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He completed his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where his dissertation explored siblings’ sexual behaviour and abuse within Jewish Orthodox communities.
Dr. Marmor has published extensively on this topic and served as guest editor for a special issue of the ‘Child Abuse & Neglect’ journal dedicated to sibling sexual abuse. His broader research focuses on sexual abuse within closed communities, encompassing various cultural and religious contexts. His work includes studies aimed at improving investigations of child abuse involving Israeli and Palestinian Muslim and ultra-Orthodox children, as well as exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child protection, particularly concerning children’s rights and the rise in physical and sexual abuse during that time (USA and Israel). A core theme of Dr. Marmor’s work is bridging the gap between field practice and academic research. He is committed to ensuring that empirical findings meaningfully inform practitioners, policy, and front-line responses to child maltreatment, while at the same time bringing the field's voices to academia and addressing challenges in the Social Work field.
Dr. Marmor conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on mandatory reporting legislation. This project examines efforts to reform child protection laws in England and the ongoing debates in Scotland and Wales. His research aims to shed light on the legal, ethical, and practical dimensions of mandatory reporting and contribute to policy frameworks that effectively safeguard children while respecting their rights and needs.
Research interests
Dr. Marmor’s areas of expertise include child maltreatment in closed communities, sibling sexual abuse, children’s rights, the intersection of culture and child protection, mandatory reporting policies, and the relationship between fieldwork and academic research. He is particularly interested in context-informed approaches to child protection and developing practices that inform social work, policy-making, and legal frameworks.