LAUSR

ABSTRACT Building on ideals of social cohesion, equality of opportunities and socio-economic benefits, there has been an increasing awareness in Norway of kindergarten employees’ responsibility to initiate early childhood intervention. The process of identifying children in need of intervention involves a complex chain of actions in which documentation is at stake. A massive textual representation of children takes place, in which children are categorized as certain types. The textually-mediated social construction of children has feedback effects on the categories and the classification system itself. The article builds on an institutional ethnography of early childhood intervention, starting within the standpoint of kindergarten staff, and provides a detailed account of an institutional circuit. It displays how texts within this circuit contribute to rendering certain actions institutionally accountable.