Socionomen - den hjälpande handen : En kvalitativ undersökning kring hur yrkesverksamma socion o mer förstår sin yrkesidentitet

Sammanfattning: Authors: Jessica Bjurberg & Anna Engblom Title: Social Worker – the helping hand A qualitative study how active social workers experience their professional identity. Supervisor: Mikael Sandgren Assesor: Janicke Andersson The purpose of our study was to investigate how active social workers experience their professional identity. The method used for this investigation was semi-structured interviews of social workers in different positions with varying degree of experience. The result showed that the professional identity is something that is unique for each individual. However, by structured analysis of the transcribed interviews, a number of factors of importance for the understanding as well as for developing and maintaining of the professional identity were identified. These factors were categorized into five different themes: importance of experience, personal traits, work tasks, reflexivity and the meaning of the professional role for the professional identity. Based on our respondents' stories, we have gained insight into how hard-defined professional identity is at the same time as it appears to be very important to the social worker.