"Sometimes we are everything and nothing in the same breath": beginning social work practitioners' constructions of professional identity : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
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Date
2007
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Massey University
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Abstract
This research takes a social constructionist approach to examine how beginning social
work practitioners use discursive practices to make meaning of their experiences and
construct their professional identities in the social and political environment of
Aotearoa New Zealand.
A qualitative inquiry, it utilises the methods of individual interviews and a focus group
to gather information from ten beginning social work practitioners who have degreelevel
or post-graduate social work qualifications and are within their first three years of
practice in child protection, health and community settings. A discursive analytic
approach is employed to determine how these practitioners use interpretive repertoires
drawn from wider social discourses to construct identities in relation to professional
social work practice.
The research found that these practitioners utilised five interpretive repertoires, which
included 'social work as social change', 'social work as helping', 'constraints', 'being
professional' and 'self-care' to construct a number of corresponding identities by which
they could account for themselves as competent social workers, albeit not always able
to achieve their notions of best practice. These identities included 'change agent',
'helper', 'capable but constrained', 'professional' and 'person(s) first'. The research
suggests that these identities are shaped by wider social discourses of social work that
have formed over time within the historical, cultural and social milieu of Aotearoa New
Zealand, and which often operate in contradiction to each other in education, practice
and social settings.
The research recommends that to ease the transition from education to practice, new
social workers be taught to understand the social work environment as one in which
competing discourses interact to influence their constitution of professional identities,
and that adequate material supports such as supervision be put in place by employing
organisations to provide new social workers with emotional support and opportunities
to critically consider their selves in the work environment. Recommendations for future
research are also made and the thesis ends with a reflection on the research process.
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Keywords
Social workers, Social work, New Zealand, Social work practice, Professional identity