The implicit construction of ‘children at risk’. On the dynamics of practise and programme in development screenings in early childhood.

The article presents findings from an ethnographic study on preventive paediatric checkups in Germany. In accordance with systems theoretical and governmentality approaches (referencing Foucault), preventive checkups are conceptualized as fields where risk concepts related to children’s development are applied, produced, and reworked. In order to show how the construction of development risks in the checkups’ conduct is linked to a variety of preventive functions, the methodology of the paper combines the analysis of field documents and ethnographic field notes. In a first analytical section, on the programmatic level the ambivalence between different preventive tasks is reconstructed by analyzing documents of the checkups’ current revision pro-cess. This process is discussed as a (political) struggle for treatment options. In a second part, these findings are contrasted with results from a practise analysis of the checkups’ conduct. These practical processes in the field are interpreted as struggles for the allocation of treatment responsibility between paediatricians and parents. In concluding, the authors highlight how the specific institutionalization of preventive paediatric checkups in Germany forces the pace for implicit constructions of ‘children at risk’ and extemporised practises of parents’ health education.