Abstract: Interdisciplinarity at its core involves epistemologically reconceptualizing a problem and challenging discipline/s within which the problem is embedded. This paper attempts to show how research on child maltreatment within disciplines can be integrated within the context of new paradigm that epistemologically challenges the prevailing traditional paradigm within individual disciplines and reconceptualizes the problem of child maltreatment, leading to new insights on child maltreatment and how to prevent it. To do so, we draw on a newly emerging model of children and child-adult relationships, adultism (child-centered, child rights) conceptualizing research and policy within the context of the social inequality and the oppression of children, where children are denied human rights and are disproportionately victims of maltreatment and exploitation. This stands in contrast to the degree to which individual disciplines within the social sciences, physical sciences, medical fields, and appliedsciences and professions are steeped epistemologically in adult-centered (colonial, parent rights) perspectives which conceptualizes children within the context of adult agendas of obedience and inferiority, at best a paternalistic view of child-caring vs. child rights. In turn, this allows us to see how much of the prior research (or lack of) and policy of different disciplines has supported the maintenance of the oppression of children most generally and child maltreatment specifically. In contrast, the new model of children and child-adult relationships, adultism, allows us, in a truly interdisciplinary way, to epistemologically reconceptualize violence against children and challenge the assumptions about children embedded in individual disciplines. This leads to an unmasking of the oppression. children, violence against children and thereby holds the hope for policies to prevent it.
