Definitions vary with cultural and historical views about children and their care, the purpose and ideology of responses to identified abuse, and the explanatory models. A lack of clarify of definition has potential advantages, including the potential for flexibility and local variation in the application of operational definitions and resultant government intervention in family life. The major increase in awareness and concern about child abuse since its identification in the 1950's has been matched by a broadening of the concept of abuse. The studies conducted during the last 20 years represent a fragmented literature not located within a theoretical framework of how society identifies and responds to perceived maltreatment of children. The challenge for the future is to develop a conceptual system to integrate the separate studies into a social science of child maltreatment and child protection by creating a framework that does not avoid the central issues of definition. Figure and 53 references