Resident Profile
nger Sagatun-Edwards remembers always being interested in the administration of justice. As a 16-year-old in Norway, she volunteered to work with juvenile delinquents at a maximum-security facility.
Now, as a professor and the chairwoman of the Administration of Justice Department at San Jose State University, the Los Altos Hills resident returned to Norway in April on a Fulbright award for three months of research and writing. The end result will be a journal article about her research.
"I chose Norway because most of the time I'll be alone, and you must speak the language where you go," she said. "It seems odd to be returning to my native country as a U.S. citizen."
Sagatun-Edwards first will study child abuse and family violence, as well as the legislature and court practices. "So I'll be reading a lot of legal codes and going to court proceedings," she said.
She also will consider drug-exposed infant cases, where the mother used illegal drugs during her pregnancy.
"Should a mother be prosecuted for fetal abuse or a threat of prosecution if she does not go to treatment?" Sagatun-Edwards asked. "I want to see what Norway is doing with the issue."
The second area Sagatun-Edwards will research is parental-child abductions. According to international law, a child is returned to the place where he or she last lived.
In contrast, in California, if there is the risk of abuse or violence, there are no charges of abduction, but the mother must call authorities and prove a risk exists, Sagatun-Edwards said.
"California allows family violence as a defense against abduction. The Hague Convention - international law - does not allow it. That fact is why a lot of people disappear with their kids," she said.
Sagatun-Edwards' husband, Judge Leonard Edwards, a noted juvenile court judge, will be joining her during May, and together they will visit family courts in London, Belfast and Edinburgh.
Sagatun-Edwards first came to the United States as a foreign exchange student in 1962. She graduated in 1967 from Whittier College, where she studied juvenile delinquency and criminology. She then earned a doctorate degree from Stanford in sociology, specializing in social psychology.
She has been on the faculty at San Jose State University since 1985 and chairwoman of the department since 1993.
From March 1995 to March 1996, Sagatun-Edwards was the lead investigator on a project to consider reunification for drug-exposed infants and their mothers. She received a $20,000 grant from the Los Altos-based Packard Foundation to work on this study.
Sagatun-Edwards and her husband co-authored "Child Abuse and the Legal System," which was published in 1995.
She has been involved in research projects over the past 20 years, writing many articles and book chapters.
Sagatun-Edwards is one of about 2,000 U.S. grantees who will travel abroad during the 1998/99 academic year through the Fulbright program. Established in 1946, the program is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries, according to the United States Information Agency.
Sagatun-Edwards and her husband bought their house in Los Altos Hills in 1977. They have two sons. Erik is in his second year of law school at Santa Clara. Don, age 16, was killed in an automobile accident two years ago.
This Fulbright is the third one in her family. "Len's brother and stepfather each had one," Sagatun-Edwards said."