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Using the case of early childcare institutions in contemporary Denmark, the aim of the article is to show that welfare entails visions of living that are made manifest through the requirements of everyday institutional practices. The main argument is that welfare institutions are designed not only to take care of people's basic needs but also to enable them to fare well in accordance with the dominant norms of society. This is particularly evident in the case of children. Children are objects of intense normative att ention and are invested in as no other social group in order to ensure their enculturation. Therefore, studying the collective investments in children, for example by paying att ention to the institutional arrangements set up for them, off ers insight into dominant cultural priorities and hoped-for outcomes.

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Drawing on sociologist Norbert Elias' theory of civilising processes, this article argues for a perspective on children as 'potential'. With this notion, we focus on the efforts, hopes and fears that adult society invest in children and through them in future society. Seeing this as a result of historical processes and social dynamics, we hold that such a perspective provides a window to deep-felt ideals and anxieties in society, the norms of civilised society that are established as well as the ongoing struggles about these norms. In this way, studying investments in children are particularly significant for social science. Yet, as cultural norms have to pass through the transformative world of childhood to be reproduced, we also have to explore how children actively affect the outcome of the civilising projects and the processes of continuity and change.