Framing the Client’s Agency: Generational Layers of Lived Social Work in Finland, 1940–2000

As a local official implementing social legislation, the social worker of the Finnish social office represented society and the (emerging) welfare state. I approach encounters between social workers and their clients as a scene of experience, which as a socio-spatial setting frames the situated interaction. By combining social workers’ interviews with official material, I indicate two contested generational layers of experience in lived social work from 1940 to 2000. The two generations of social workers built their work on different interpretations of the individual–society relationship, which resulted in divergent expectations toward the clients. The generational approach nuances the macro interpretations of welfare state development by indicating how the experienced legacy of previous policies survived in welfare state institutions, framing the agency of clients.