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Forms and documents play significant roles in the context of care work for older people. One type of form that care workers use on a daily basis is individual care descriptions (ICDs). An ICD is a text that is written on a piece of paper or on a computer, and specifies the care tasks to be carried out. How do ICDs operate in local settings of care work for older people? Anchored in insights from institutional ethnography, I investigate care work practices from the standpoint of care workers in care settings in Norway. In the empirical analysis, I identify and pay attention to two particular ICDs and how they enter the everyday care work practices. The findings indicate that ICDs contribute to standardizing care work practices that are related to changes in the cultural and institutional foundations of the welfare state. Furthermore, ICDs coordinate practices in different ways, and promote several forms of coordination. Hence, when analysing care descriptions at work, awareness of contextual sensitivity is called for. This paper contributes to research on management and power relationships in home care and nursing care work by illustrating different dimensions of textually based coordination.

Welfare recipients are continuously subjected to media debates and governmental campaigns drawing on images and symbols encouraging improved work ethic and individual responsibility. Only few studies, however, have analysed how welfare recipients as 'othered' citizens react to these often stereotypical symbols and images targeting them. In this study we have investigated how welfare recipients in Norway and Denmark, and caseworkers in Denmark, understand and account for images which, through the use of stereotypes, directly or indirectly may question welfare recipients' work ethic and deservedness. Analysing photo-elicitation interview data, we have uncovered a variety of reactions characterized by 'problematization'. The interviewees problematize the image and depicted stereotypes, which they link both with motif and symbols and with surrounding public debates on the work ethic and deservedness of welfare recipients. Furthermore, as photo-elicitation is a rarely used tool in welfare research, we address methodological aspects of using photo-elicitation in a study of 'othered' welfare recipients.

Welfare recipients are continuously subjected to media debates and governmental campaigns drawing on images and symbols encouraging improved work ethic and individual responsibility. Only few studies, however, have analysed how welfare recipients as 'othered' citizens react to these often stereotypical symbols and images targeting them. In this study we have investigated how welfare recipients in Norway and Denmark, and caseworkers in Denmark, understand and account for images which, through the use of stereotypes, directly or indirectly may question welfare recipients' work ethic and deservedness. Analysing photo-elicitation interview data, we have uncovered a variety of reactions characterized by 'problematization'. The interviewees problematize the image and depicted stereotypes, which they link both with motif and symbols and with surrounding public debates on the work ethic and deservedness of welfare recipients. Furthermore, as photo-elicitation is a rarely used tool in welfare research, we address methodological aspects of using photo-elicitation in a study of 'othered' welfare recipients.