Description: The paper focuses on career choices of poor children within a discourse analytical framework. The focus is to analyse how the question of career choice was defined by poor relief and child welfare in Finland in the 1920's and the 1930's. The interest lies in what kind of educational discourses were constructed and how they were constructed. This paper will draw attention to the way poor relief and child welfare policies built conceptions of differences between individuals and how these definitions were gender and class related. The further aim is to discuss how the discourses constructed the systems of exclusion and inclusion. According to Sverker Lindblad and Thomas Popkewitz (2002) "it is in the governing practices of knowledge that we can entertain a way of understanding constitution of systems of inclusion/exclusion". The knowledge problematic considers the construction of the 'qualities' that distinguish and differentiate individuals. It is important to research the production of gender-ness and class-ness of individuality. Methodology: The analysis is based on a discourse analytical reading of contemporary sources by poor relief and child welfare. The sources consists of various governmental, legislative and administrative texts: for example contemporary literature, articles from magazines and journals connected to poor relief, child welfare or education, and other official documents - such as laws, statutes, parliamentary documents, committee memoranda. Official statistics will also be analysed. In addition numbers and amounts, statistics told stories about categorisations and divisions constructed. Conclusions: The paper will conclude that there was constructed a pedagogical discourse and an administrative discourse which excluded some groups and included others. The career choices and occupational classifications built within the pedagogical discourse were based on psychological evaluations and arguments. Psychology was instrumental in constructing different categorisations between individuals. The definitions and classifications constructed by poor relief and child welfare were often gender-specific and could also vary according to social background and geographical location. In addition, categorisations built differences within separate groups, for example within social class.