Abstract
The social construction of the use of economic incentives as help and control.
This thesis deals with the social construction of care and control in social work.
It may seem straightforward to define what care means in social work, and the term is frequently used with a high degree of agreement conception of its meaning, whereas the definition of control and discipline in social work is still under debate. But when you take a closer look at care it turns out that even this term is not so straightforward after all. Firstly it can be difficult to distinguish the helping and controlling functions in social work because they are often intertwined, and therefore it may be difficult to identify what is care and what is control. Secondly, it is also a question of whether care and control in social work needs to be understood from a contradiction. Can control be help if it leads to changes? Or can help be control if aid requires attitude and behavioral adjustment of the client side. Finally, social work consists of a number of subjects – social workers, social clients and politicians, all of which may have different understanding and interests, from whence help and control in social work are
ascribed meaning.

In the process off researching the topic of the thesis it has been necessary to make a delineation of the subject and I have chosen to focuses the thesis on how the use of economic incentives in the work with supplementary benefit recipients, are constructed as care and control.

I have in my study chosen a social constructivist and discourse theoretical approach to the problem formulation. Methodologically, I have chosen to use a documentstudy in the form of extracts from parliamentary debates on the various legislative amendments and bills that have
been treated during the period 2002 to 2009.

Based on my analysis, I have identified a number of different discourses for and against the use of economic incentives relative to supplementary benefit recipients. These discourses are articulated in relation to different groups of people and Bills. The analysis also showed that the different discourses constructed differently in relation to care and control.