Bedingungslose Inklusion?

Previous drafts of unconditional child and youth welfare take the existing practices of means-testing in educational assistance as a starting point in order to criticise the associated stigmatisation effects and insinuations of deficits. At the centre of this criticism is the needs category of ‘educational need’, according to which the legal entitlement to educational assistance has so far been necessarily linked to a parenthood classified as deficient and a damaged identity. This finding is part of a structural critique of the existing child and youth welfare system and ultimately results in the vote to allow access to child and youth welfare services in the future—and this addresses educational assistance in particular—without a means test and thus unconditionally (Schrödter 2020). In addition to a number of other unanswered questions, there is a need to clarify how the proposals for unconditional child and youth welfare relate to the current debate on inclusive child and youth welfare and with regard to the category of disability. The article explores the question of the extent to which unconditional child and youth welfare also promises unconditional inclusion. At first glance, unconditional child and youth welfare seems to fulfil the basic objective of inclusion, which is obviously associated with final stigmatisation and decategorisation.