Riksdagens Socialtjänst : En kritisk diskursanalys av hur socialtjänsten framställs i Sveriges riksdag och hur det kan förstås utifrån Foucaults maktbegrepp

Sammanfattning: Using two reports from the The Riksdag’s Social Affairs Committee, this essay has examined and analyzed discourses that are expressed in how the Riksdag describes the social services. The material has been analyzed using critical discourse analysis and Foucalts terms Power/knowledge to see what can be said about how the social services are described and constructed.   The dicourses I could identify in the material was a legal discourse where the social service is defined based on legislation where the words used to describe the goal of the social services is not being discussed. Knowledge-based discourse where the social service is mainly described in terms of a flawed organization and where the solution is more knowledge, a discourse I chose to call unity where a consensus is manifested regarding the social services and finally the formalized discourse where there is indications of a discursive change towards a higher level of formalized language-use that affects how the Riksdag constructs the social services.     This essay also discusses the importance of examining how the Riksdag constructs the social services through the use of language and that how they use the language affects how the social services is understood which impacts the social work. Lastly I argue that an examination of how power/knowledge is expressed is needed to, among other things, make it possible to introduce alternative and new discourses.