This paper considers the responses made by the Education Welfare Service to school non-attendance, or ‘truancy’. The historical development of the service is examined, along with Victorian discourse on schooling. This discourse provided the rationale for the introduction of compulsory schooling, and contributed to the pathologisation of truancy. The development of a ‘pathology of truancy’ over the past century has involved, firstly, the categorisation of truants, and secondly, the regulation of truants and their families. The dichotomy between ‘care’ and ‘control’ measures is central to an understanding of these two processes of categorisation and regulation. These processes are discussed with reference to the Education Welfare Service in a city in the North Midlands. The article concludes with an exploration of possible future developments within the national service, in the light of the Children Act 1989.
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