THE CLIENT INTERVIEW AND THE CONTEXT

Based on analysis of 60 tape-recorded or observed interviews from a Da nish social welfare office the article examines the Lipssky-like quest ion: How and to what extent are macro structures such as social legisl ation and local municipal rules brought into real live existence in th e meeting between case workers and clients? To what extent do the case workers show rule-conforming practice? Illustrated by several extract s, it is shown that the legislation is not a simple governing instance and that the case workers do not serve as simple tools for fulfilling decisions made as formal rules at a macro level, On the contrary, the case workers made use of those rules and official client or benefit c ategories that seemed helpful to them for their own professional purpo ses, and so did the clients in order to secure their interests. All in all, the case workers showed a considerable distance to social securi ty office which was presented for the clients as distant and partly ho stile towards the clients.