This study, a document analysis with a qualitative approach, explores children, under 18years, who have been subject to measures of child welfare in the city of Malmö during theyears 1935-1937. It also explores the school's role in this context. The questions that the studyis guided by is: How was children described in the Child Welfare documents in Malmö duringthe years 1935-1937? And what role did the school have in Child Welfare work and whatmotivated this? The theoretical approaches are Foucaults theories of power, control anddisciplining.It appears from the study that the school and child welfare authorities had a close cooperationwith the purpose to control the upbringing and disciplining of the children. It was through theupbringing that the deviant child would become a "normal", docile and good, industriouscitizen. The school, as well as the board, had to shoulder a part of the upbringing when theparents skills in their upbringing of the children was questioned by society.This study can hopefully provide knowledge and understanding of our social history, it mayhelp us to understand the great changes that have occurred and what is still unchanged.

The main focus in this thesis lies in the observation of how the public debate is formulating and developing in Finland in relation to the current implementation of the Inquiry on historical child abuse and neglect in out-of-home care. This thesis analyses the testimonies published around the investigation and on historical child abuse, in the public domain. The release of two documentaries broadcasted on National TV (YLE TV1) in 2013 and 2014 triggered a, however scarce, online public discussion with few newspapers’ as well as magazines’ articles covering informatively the inquiry. The online debate has so far seen the participation mainly of the victims themselves of historical abuse. Generally, I found a confirmation that the Finnish individualistic culture is hardly prompt to open discussion on such topics. As S.N., a care leaver, explains in the second documentary: (Lehikoinen, Luurankokaappi, 2014) “the culture does not give space” though people have “the need to speak.” My thematic analysis on this debate has nonetheless disclosed an urge to come to terms with a past of institutional abuse, framed in a general context of public mistrust in the Child Welfare4 system. The care-leavers, narrating their stories in the two TV documentaries, disclosed memories of neglect, violence and systematical isolation of the Poor. Their stories are interpreted through the debate on the media as stories of injustice. Their narration portraits a concept of “child care” very far from nowadays’ standards of child welfare. Care-leaver H.S. points his finger on the Finnish child-care institution where he spent his childhood in the ‘50s: “Only a monster can send a child to such a place!” (Lehikoinen, Varastettu Lapsuus, 2013).

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Social work is a profession where documentation about people’s behavior and life circumstances is common. In the beginning of the essay we ask ourselves, if these descriptions about people can be problematic? To explore this, we studied social documentation, from the past. We used a historical source because history can help usunderstand the social work that is being conducted today. The aim of our study was to findout how early welfare work defined and described deviant behavior in child care issues, and how the child care agency handled these issues. Out method was a document analysis off the children’s care protocols in Kalmar, from 1929 to 1937. We present our results along with two illustrative case descriptions. Our theoretical approaches are Howard S Becker and Erwing Goffman´s theories of deviation. Their conclusion is that deviation is created by society, not by individuals or their actions. Since cases of children’s neglect and cases with deviant children were common and well documented we focused our empirical presentation on what was included in these terms. Children’s neglect cases focused on parent’s inability to provide the child with proper food, clothes, housing and similar factors. We also found that they made a distinction between mothers and fathers responsibility in these cases. Regarding the deviant children they also made a distinction between the sexes, identifying different behaviors deviant for girls andboys. Though some factors, such as being a illegitimate child and being unreliable is a definition used on both sexes. Since, according to our theories, deviation is created by our society our conclusion is that both children’s neglect and problem children can be seen as a result of societies expectations, and we present examples of how that can be understood in our analyze. In our final discussion we discuss how the definition of deviant behavior is relevant today. We discuss our findings in relation to BBIC, a Swedish child protection investigation guide. Our conclusion is that we still create deviations through documentation.