ABSTRACT

In the last chapter we discussed the discourse surrounding children and children’s services in England. In this chapter we look in greater detail at four policy documents as vehicles and instruments of that discourse. Selma Sevenhuijsen, undertaking a feminist analysis of a Dutch Government document as a political and ethical exercise, writes of the process and purpose of this type of deconstructive exercise:

Policy texts are sites of power…. By establishing narrative conventions, authoritative repertoires of interpretation and frameworks of argumentation and communication, they confer power upon preferred modes of speaking and judging, and upon certain ways of expressing moral and political subjectivity. Through examining official documents in this way it becomes possible to trace both the overt and hidden gender load in their vocabulary.