Documentation of education for teenagers in residential care: a network of blame and critique

This article presents analyses of documents from special schools in Sweden for students in the care of social welfare who have been assessed with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The aim is to use actor-network theory to analyse how blame and critique are handled in individual educational plans, and how responsibilities are produced in interactions between human and non-human actors. The documentation can be read as a materialised network that produces a distributed responsibility; the network is stabilised by accepting and recognising differences between actors. The template headings for each actor enable different translations of the network and make it possible for responsibilities to be distributed between students, parents, social service officers and teachers, thereby reducing the risk of conflicts. While the network provides opportunities for students to become learners, it is silent on the topic of adults' responsibilities.