Helping, mediating, and gaining recognition: The everyday identity work of Romanian health social workers

Alexandra Ciocănel · Florin Lazăr · Shari Munch · Cara Harmon · Georgiana Cristina Rentea · Daniela Gaba +1 more

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Social Work Education and Practice Social Sciences and Policies Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

Health social work is a field with challenges, opportunities, and ways of professing social work that may vary between different national contexts. In this article, we look at how Romanian health social workers construct their professional identity through their everyday identity work. Drawing on a qualitative study based on interviews with 21 health social workers working in various organizational contexts, we analyze what health social workers say they do and how this shapes their self-conception as professionals. Four main themes emerged from participants' descriptions: being a helping professional, being a mediator, gaining recognition, and contending with limits. Through these themes, participants articulated the everyday struggles and satisfactions specific to working as recently recognized professionals in Romanian health and welfare systems not always supportive of their work.

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References

1998Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development 1987Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists 2005The SAGE handbook of qualitative research 2006Constructing Professional Identity: The Role of Work and Identity Learning Cycles in the Customization of Identity Among Medical Residents 2003Managing Managerial Identities: Organizational Fragmentation, Discourse and Identity Struggle 1962Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction.1981Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services 1964Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction

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