Die Ordnung der Familie als Präventionsressource. Informelle Entwicklungsdiagnostik in Vorsorge- und Schuleingangsuntersuchungen am Beispiel kindlicher Fernsehnutzung.

The paper emphasizes the importance of informal diagnostic procedures in routine paediatric and medical school entry check-ups (Kindervorsorge- und Einschulungsuntersuchungen) from the perspective of cultural analysis. Analysing the ethnographic data we demonstrate how diagnostic knowledge is built up in the course of interaction between paediatrician, parent, and child and which effects appear. The empirical analysis focuses on the paediatrician’s investigation into the child habits of watching television. This informal element of the physician’s diagnosis is specifically suitable to show how the paediatrician assesses the family’s lifestyle and its educational potential and how he uses this information to diagnose the need for prevention. We will argue that the interactive transformation of the focus of medical observation and treatment from “children” to “parents and children” – that means to the relationship between generations –, points out the dependency on the context and institutional logic in constructing diagnostic knowledge regarding developmental processes of children. It is shown as well in which way societal expectations on the generational relations in families are shaped in these preventive examinations of development.