Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyse juridification and standardisation as two legal dimensions influencing contemporary child-protection work, and to discuss its implications for practice. We provide a framework for how the concepts of juridification and standardisation might be understood and analytically differentiated, drawing on theoretical discussions within both socio-legal and social work literature. We illustrate the framework by analysing empirical examples that relate to ideas of children’s rights, standardised assessment frameworks and to an integrated model for multi-professional collaboration in cases of child abuse. The empirical examples depart from a Nordic context, but can be seen as examples of travelling ideas found in other countries as well. The understanding of legal phenomena today is broad, often referring to law itself (hard law) as well as to other forms of regulations (soft law), with the common focus on formal procedures and predictability as a means to provide security. However, in this article, we argue that it is necessary to analytically differentiate between the two legal dimensions, to be able to study and discuss how they relate to each other, co-exist and interact. Finally, implications for child-protection practice are discussed in light of the provided framework.