Det är vår förbannade skyldighet! : En kvalitativ studie av hur socialsekreterare kan uppleva utrymmet för civilkurage

Sammanfattning: This thesis studies public service social workers' opinions regarding their ability to act with moral courage as loyalty conflicts occur. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the social workers' experiences of their possibilities to stand up for what they believe in. We made qualitative interviews with five social workers in Stockholm. In an effort to pinpoint their experiences we asked them questions about what they want but cannot do and what is stop-ping them, what they do not want to do and why, aswell as what the possible solutions would be as loyalty conflicts occur. We were able to identify five different opinions on the organisa-tional cultures and how the employees' experience the extent of their actions. The social workers agree that at the moment they are able to alert a manager should a loyalty conflict occur and neither would want to further complicate the situation by working slower.The ob-stacles for acting in a loyalty conflict is connected to the hierarchies and abuse of power and personal impediments like their own expectations and dejected opinions such as "nothing is going to change anyway". When the social worker chooses not to act it is often because of moral values.