No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Making Policies: The History of the Danish Child Welfare System at the Local Level
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
Abstract
This article examines out-of-home placements in Denmark over a seven-decade period from 1905 to 1975. The Danish state delegated this responsibility to a, using the words of Kimberly J. Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff, “difficult-to-classify public-private hybrid,” the Children’s Welfare Boards (CWBs). These CWBs comprised private citizens selected by the municipality. The article shows how the CWBs acted as interpreters, mediators, and implementers of state policy at the street level while also functioning as the direct link between government and citizens. The findings reveal an inherent conflict between center and periphery in that the state’s nationwide regulations and bureaucratic practices, intended to apply to all citizens uniformly, were to be implemented by local units within municipalities that operated according to logics other than those of the state. The vase of variations in child out-placement practices shows the importance of examining local variations in studying the history of policy implementation.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © Cambridge University Press 2022
Footnotes
A draft of this paper was presented at the conference Society for the History of Childhood and Youth XI Biennial International Conference in 2021. I am thankful to the participants and panel for pertinent comments and questions. I would also like to thank the researchers at the Danish Center for Welfare Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, especially Klaus Petersen, as well as Johanna Sköld, Birgitte Søland, Karen Vallgårda, Nell Musgrove, and Megan Birk for insightful comments on the very first draft of this paper. Finally, I would like to thank the three peer reviewers for their relevant suggestions for improving the paper.
References
NOTES
1. The article is based on my dissertation, now published as a monograph: Bjerre, Cecilie, Når staten er far og mor. Børneværnets anbringelser af børn i Danmark 1905-1975(Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2021)Google Scholar.
2. See, e.g., Kolstrup, Søren, Velfærdsstatens rødder: fra kommunesocialisme til folkepension (Copenhagen: Selskabet til Forskning i Arbejderbevægelsens Historie, SFAH skriftserie, 1996)Google Scholar; Jacqueson, Catherine, “Administering Social Security and Health in Denmark: Between Centralisation and Decentralisation,” European Journal of Social Security 21, no. 2 (2019): 183–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3. See, e.g., Christiansen, Niels Finn and Petersen, Klaus, “The Dynamics of Social Solidarity: The Danish Welfare State, 1900-2000,” Scandinavian Journal of History 26, no. 3 (2001): 177–96CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Klaus Petersen, “Welfare State Policies. From the Beginning towards an End?” In The Oxford Handbook of Danish Politics, eds. Peter Munk Christiansen, Jørgen Elkit, and Peter Nedergaard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 541–58.
4. Lipsky, Michael, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, 30th anniversary expanded ed. (New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 2010),Google Scholar xii.
5. Brodkin, Evelyn Z., “Discretion in the Welfare State,” in Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom, eds. Tony Evans, and Hupe, Peter (Cham: Springer, 2020), 63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19566-3_5.
6. Vallgårda also argues for the importance of “zooming in on the actual exchanges between individuals and institutions representing the state on the one hand and ordinary subjects on the other”; Karen Vallgårda, “Ugly Intimacies and State Power: Separation Processes in Late Nineteenth‐Century Denmark,” Gender & History 33, no. 1 (2019) 111–28, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12449.
7. The three CWBs represent the big city (the CWB of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark), the market town (the CWB of Odense), and the rural district (The CWB of Silkeborg, covering the current municipal and thus including several rural CWBs).
8. Brickell, Chris, “On the Case of Youth: Case Files, Case Studies, and the Social Construction of Adolescence,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 6, no. 1 (2013): 51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9. Franca Iacovetta and Wendy Mitchinsen, “Introduction. Social History and Case Files Research,” in On the Case. Explorations in Social History, eds. Franca Iacovetta and Wendy Mitchinson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 1–2.
10. Swain, Shurlee and Musgrove, Nell, “We Are the Stories We Tell about Ourselves: Child Welfare Records and the Construction of Identity among Australians Who, as Children, Experienced Out-of-Home ‘Care,’” Archives and Manuscripts 40, no. 1 (2012), 7–8 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11. Vehkalahti, Kaisa, “Dusting the Archives of Childhood: Child Welfare Records as Historical Sources,” History of Education 45, no. 4 (2016): 431 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12. Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, 27–28.
13. Bryderup, Inge M., Børnelove og socialpædagogik gennem hundrede år (Århus, Forlaget Klim, 2005), 63 Google Scholar.
14. Brodkin, “Discretion in the Welfare State,” 67.
15. Kimberly J. Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff, “Introduction: The Many Hands of the State,” in The Many Hands of the State. Theorizing Political Authority and Social Control, eds. Kimberly J. Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 3.
16. Astri Andresen et al., Barnen och välfärdspolitiken, Nordiska barndomar 1900-2000, Serie framtider (Stockholm: Dialogos Förlag, 2011), 24.
17. E.g., the Health Insurance Society (1892), the Public Schools Act (1899), and the Factory Act (1901) with restrictions regarding child employment: Søren Kolstrup, Den danske velfærdsmodel 1891-2011, sporskifter, motiver, drivkræfter, 1 udgave (Frederiksberg: Frydenlund, 2014), 26.
18. Betænkning afgiven af Udvalget til Revision af Børneloven, 1911, 129.
19. de Coninck-Smith, Ning, For barnets skyld, byen, skolen og barndommen 1880-1914 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2000), 297 Google Scholar.
20. Andresen et al., “Barnen och välfärdspolitiken, Nordiska barndomar 1900-2000, 147; Johanna Sköld, Fosterbarnsindustri eller människokärlek” (PhD diss., Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2006), 126.
21. In 1941, only twenty-nine out of approximately 344 children’s institutions characterized as state institutions: Jesper Vaczy Krag et al., Anbragt i Historien. Et Socialhistorisk Projekt Om Anbragte Og Indlagte i Perioden 1945-1980 (Svendborg, Socialstyrelsen, 2015), 108.
22. Johanna Sköld and Pirjo Markkola, “History of Child Welfare: A Present Political Concern,” Scandinavian Journal of History 45, no. 2 (March 2020): 146, https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2020.1764383.
23. E.g., “Nr. 342, 19. Novbr., Justitsmin. Cirk. Ang., Hvem Der Har Myndighed Til, Hvor Forældre Nyde Vedvarende Fattigunderstøttelse Udenfor Forsørgelsesanstalter, at Tage Bestemmelse Om et Barns Borttagelse Fra Hjemmet Og i Forbindelse Dermed Om Forældremagtens Overførsel Til Andre m.v.,” in Lovtidende B, 1906; Landsnævnet for børneforsorg, Cirkulære Til Københavns Magistrats 3. Afdeling (Børneværnet) Og Samtlige Børneværnsudvalg Om Forskellige Forhold Vedrørende Unge Lovovertrædere, 1950.
24. Swain, Shurlee, “Florence and Rosamund Davenport Hill and the Development of Boarding Out in England and Australia: A Study in Cultural Transmission,” Women’s History Review 23, no. 5 (2014): 752 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25. Musgrove, Nell and Michell, Deidre, The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia (New York: Springer, 2018), 10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26. There is a striking resemblance to the arguments of establishing the juvenile court system in the United States. According to Wolcott, the juvenile court system was designed with the intention of helping, rather than punishing youth and child offenders. D. Wolcott, “‘The Cop Will Get You’: The Police and Discretionary Juvenile Justice, 1890-1940,” Journal of Social History 35, no. 2 (December 1, 2001): 350, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2001.0152.
27. Betænkning fra Kommissionen angaaende Statstilsyn med Børneopdragelsen, 1895, 44.
28. Betænkning fra Kommissionen, 24.
29. Betænkning fra Kommissionen, 18.
30. Anne Løkke, Vildfarende børn, om forsømte og kriminelle børn mellem filantropi og stat 1880-1920 (Holte: SocPol, 1990), 28; Lars Schädler Andersen, “Between Social Radicalism and Christian Socialism: Intellectuals, Social Knowledge and the Building of the Early Danish Welfare State,” in In Experts We Trust. Knowledge, Politics and Bureaucracy in Nordic Welfare States, eds. Åsa Lundqvist and Klaus Petersen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2010), 90–92.
31. Coninck-Smith, For barnets skyld, 293.
32. Betænkning fra Kommissionen, 22.
33. Murdoch identifies the same argument used by British philanthropists and child savers: Lydia Murdoch, Imagined Orphans Poor Families, Child Welfare, and Contested Citizenship in London (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 2007), 1–2, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.90035.
34. Sveistrup, Poul, “Kvindernes Første Kommunale Hverv,” Kvinden Og Samfundet, no. 7 (1888): 202.Google Scholar
35. Koven, Seth and Michel, Sonya, “Womanly Duties: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, 1880-1920,” The American Historical Review 95, no. 4 (1990): 1077 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lützen, Karin, “Den Borgerlige Filantropi Som Forudsætning for Velfærdsstaten,” in 13 Historier Om Den Danske Velfærdsstat, ed. Petersen, Klaus (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2003), 47 Google Scholar.
36. The view of women as “natural” mothers in Child Welfare Service was an international phenomenon: Musgrove and Michell, The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia, 168–70.
37. Hanne Rimmen Nielsen, “Danish Women in the Transition from Philanthropy to Welfare State,” in Charitable Women: Philanthropic Welfare 1780-1930, eds. Birgitta Jordansson and Tinne Vammen (Odense: Odense University Press 1998), 242; Swain, Shurlee, “Negotiating Poverty: Women and Charity in Nineteenth Century Melbourne,” Women’s History Review 16, no. 1 (February 2007): 101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1080/09612020601049744.
38. Arbejds- og Socialministeriet, Betænkning vedrørende børneforsorgens administration m. v., Betænkning 181 + 191 (1957), 9.
39. In 1922, 1933, 1958, 1964, and 1975.
40. Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke, “Den Sociale Ingeniørkunst i Danmark, Familie, Stat og Politik fra 1900 til 1945” (PhD. diss., Roskilde: RUC, 1999), 64.
41. In Norway and Sweden schools for social work were established in 1920 and 1921, respectively.
42. Tine Egelund, Beskyttelse af barndommen: socialforvaltningens risikovurdering og indgreb (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1997), 56–57.
43. Bente Rosenbeck, “‘En Fribåren Social Skole’—Da det sociale hjælpearbejde blev til en uddannelse,” in Handlingens Kvinder, eds. Karen Hjorth and Anette Warring (Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetsforlag, 2001), 130–31.
44. Orla Jensen, “Socialkontoret Og Dets Instrumenter,” Socialt Tidsskrift 27, Afd. A (1951): 175.
45. Quote from Anette Faye Jacobsen, “Kontrol og Demokrati. Træk af dansk børneforsorgs historie 1933-1958,” Historisk Tidsskrift 15, no. 4 (1989): 255.
46. Bjerre, Når staten er far og mor, 43–58; Klaus Petersen, “Fra Befolkningspolitik Til Familiepolitik,” in Dansk Velfærdshistorie. Velfærdsstaten i Støbeskeen. Bind III. Perioden 1933-1956, eds. Jørn Henrik Petersen, Klaus Petersen, and Niels Finn Christiansen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2012), 636–38.
47. Klaus Petersen, “Familiepolitikkens Storhedstid,” in Dansk Velfærdshistorie. Velfærdsstatens Storhedstid. Bind IV. Perioden 1956-1973, eds. Jørn Henrik Petersen, Klaus Petersen, and Niels Finn Christiansen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2012), 614.
48. Bryderup, Børnelove og socialpædagogik gennem hundrede år, 276.
49. Mahoney, James, “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology,” Theory and Society 29, no. 4 (2000): 510–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
50. Bryderup, Børnelove og socialpædagogik gennem hundrede år, 383.
51. Axel Petersen, Samfundet og børnene, om statens og samfundets stilling til den forsømte og forvildede ungdom, med særligt hensyn til sagens historiske udvikling (Copenhagen, 1904), 190.
52. Nielsen, Agnar, “1966 Bør Blive et År Hvor Tilbudstanken Og Familievejledningen Slår Endeligt Igennem,” Børnesagens Tidende 61, no. 1 (January 1, 1966): 5–6 Google Scholar.
53. Petersen, “Fra Befolkningspolitik Til Familiepolitik,” 639–40.
54. Kolstrup, Søren, “Kommunesocialismen. Et Studie i Kommunale Velfærdspionerer,” Arbejderhistorie, no. 4 (1996): 38 Google Scholar.
55. Sköld, Johanna and Söderlind, Ingrid, Fosterbarn i tid och rum: lokal och regional variation i svensk fosterbarnsvård ca 1850–2000 (Stockholm: Carlsson, 2014), 226 Google Scholar.
56. Bryderup, Børnelove og socialpædagogik gennem hundrede år, 46.
57. Jørgensen, Harald, Lokaladministrationen i Danmark. Oprindelse og historisk udvikling indtil 1970 (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1985), 529 Google Scholar.
58. The same issues of the great divergence between municipalities and its effects have been highlighted in a Swedish context by: Sköld and Söderlind, Fosterbarn i tid och rum, 227.
59. Jensen, Jørgen, “Hvorfra får Børneværnsudvalgene Deres Sager, og hvorledes sikrer De sig, at alle Sager kommer med?” Børnesagens Tidende 53, no. 2 (January 15, 1958): 90 Google Scholar.
60. “Børneværnenes Virksomhed i Henhold Til Forsorgslovens § 130, Stk. 1, Og § 131 Samt § 130, Stk. 2,” Socialt Tidsskrift 16, no. 11, C (1955): 444.
61. Beretning for perioden 1. april 1971–31. marts 1972, National Archives, Børneværnskonsulenten for Fyns Amt, Odense.
62. Beretning for perioden 1. april 1969–31. marts 1970, Kredssager, Kontoret for Børneværnssager, Local Archive of Silkeborg.
63. Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, 14.
64. Tony Evans and Peter Hupe, “Conceptualizing Discretion,” in Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom, eds. Tony Evans and Peter Hupe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 1.
65. Lindgren stresses this function in connection with Swedish adoption cases: Cecilia Lindgren, En riktig familj, adoption, föräldraskap och barnets bästa 1917-1975, Linköping studies in arts and science 358 (Stockholm: Carlssons, 2006), 21.
66. Niels Kyed, “Oplysningsskemaet,” Børnesagens Tidende 28, no. 1 (January 1, 1933): 11.
67. All names have been anonymized by the author.
68. Birk, Megan, Fostering on the Farm: Child Placement in the Rural Midwest (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
69. Case file 732/1911 Silkeborg, letter from the central administration (Overværgerådet) to the CWB, November 30, 1911, The Local Archive of Silkeborg.
70. Case file 732/1911 Silkeborg, form, January 22, 1912.
71. This was not exclusively reserved for parents as children were also classified within the forms. As Koskela and Vehkalahti argue, forms produced “deviant” children: Anne Koskela and Kaisa Vehkalahti, “Child in a Form: The Definition of Normality and Production of Expertise in Teacher Statement Forms—the Case of Northern Finland, 1951–1990,” Paedagogica Historica 53, no. 4 (July 4, 2017): 475.
72. Forms are documents with moral categories and do not guarantee for systematic work, as stressed by Ponnert and Svensson in a Swedish contemporary context. See Lina Ponnert and Kerstin Svensson, “Standardisation—the End of Professional Discretion?” European Journal of Social Work 19, no. 3–4 (July 2016): 90–91.
73. Case file 60/1910, Copenhagen, standard form, no date, but from 1910, The City Archives of Copenhagen.
74. Case file 73/1910, Odense, standard form, 1910, City Archives of Odense.
75. Case file 73/1910, Odense, standard form, 1910.
76. Smith underscores that texts depend on the reader’s interpretative practices: Dorothy E. Smith, Texts, Facts, and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling (London: Routledge, 1990), 121.
77. Morgan and Orloff, “Introduction: The Many Hands of the State,” 9.
78. Socialministeriet, Nr. 178. Cirkulære Om Partsoffentlighed i Børneværnsudvalgenes Forvaltning, 1964.
79. Case file 2088/1940, Copenhagen, The City Archives of Copenhagen.
80. “Kirke- Og Undervisningsmin. Skr. Ang. Tilvejebringelsen af Lokaler for Værgeraadets Og Menighedsraadets Møder,” in Lovtidende B., 1907.
81. Justitsministeriet, “Justitsmin. Cirk. Ang. Gennemførelsen Af Lov 14. April 1905 Om Behandling af Forbryderske og Forsømte Børn,” in Lovtidende, 1905.
82. L. C. Brun, “Værgeraadene under Den Nye Værgeraadslov,” Børnesagens Tidende, August 1922, 113.
83. Arbejds- og Socialministeriet, Betænkning vedrørende børneforsorgens administration m. v., 12.
84. Ungdomskommissionen, Den tilpasningsvanskelige ungdom (Copenhagen, 1952), 220–28.
85. Bjerre, Når staten er far og mor, 161–69.
86. Race was not a prevalent category within social services at this point, as immigration in larger numbers only began from the 1960s and on. One exception to be highlighted is the Danish postcolonial relationship with Greenland with placing-out and adopting Greenlandic children in Denmark, see, e.g., Lund Jensen, Einar, Sniff Andersen Nexø, and Daniel Thorleifsen, Historisk udredning om de 22 grønlandske børn, der blev sendt til Danmark i 1951. Afgivet den 15. november 2020, Social-og Indenrigsministeriet. The connection between race and social class has been unraveled to a greater extent in the American context, e.g., Roberts, Dorothy E., Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (New York: Basic Books, 2002)Google Scholar; Harp, Kathi L. H. and Bunting, Amanda M., “The Racialized Nature of Child Welfare Policies and the Social Control of Black Bodies,” Social Politics 27, no. 2 (2020): 258–59CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
87. Gordon, Linda, Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, Boston, 1880-1960 (New York: Viking, 1988), 121 Google Scholar; Swift, Karen, Manufacturing, “Bad Mothers”: A Critical Perspective on Child Neglect (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 74–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
88. Lov Nr. 193 Af 4. Juni 1964. Lov Om Børne- Og Ungdomsforsorg, 1964, § 27, stk. 5.
89. Case file 29/1910, Odense, meeting minutes, December 20, 1909, The City Archives of Odense.
90. Case file 409/1910, Odense, meeting minutes, May 2, 1910.
91. Landsnævnet for børneforsorg, “Beretning for Børne-og Ungdomsforsorgen for Tiden 1. April 1968 - 31. Marts 1969,” Socialt Tidsskrift 47, no. 3, Afd. C (1971): 248; In an Australian context, voluntary placements of children increased from the 1960s: Musgrove and Michell, The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia, 78.
92. Forsorgsloven (Lovbekendtgørelse nr. 329 af 19/11 1958) af 1958 med kommentarer, 1958, § 130.
93. Anette Faye Jacobsen, “Kontrol Og Demokrati. Træk Af Dansk Børneforsorgs Historie 1933-1958,” (master’s thesis, Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1988), 255.
94. Bjerre, Når staten er far og mor, 235–36.
95. Case file 25589/1940, Odense, The City Archives of Odense.
96. Case file 661/1911, Silkeborg, standard form, October 27, 1911, The Local Archive of Silkeborg.
97. Case file 50662/1965, Odense, internal notes, July 7, 1967, The City Archives of Odense.
98. Rymph stresses that parents who requested help within the child welfare system did so only because they did not have anywhere else to turn: Rymph, Catherine E., “From ‘Economic Want’ to ‘Family Pathology’: Foster Family Care, the New Deal, and the Emergence of a Public Child Welfare System,” Journal of Policy History 24, no. 1 (2012): 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.