Identitetsskapande eller behovssträvande, vad påverkar socionomstudenters karriärsval?

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to shed light on what motives social work students have in their choice of career, more specifically what their perceptions are regarding social services and how this guides them in their choice of career. The key research question is: how can we understand social work students’ motives in their choice of profession and career paths? The analysis is guided by the two concepts identity building and satisfying of needs, which represent theoretical frameworks for understanding individual motivation and choice. Furthermore the purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of what makes it hard to recruit to social services specifically. The empirical data for this study has been gathered through qualitative, semi-structured interviews of eight social work students. The empirical data was analyzed based on the following four themes: background; choice of social work education; choice of career within social services; and students reasoning around working within social services. Those themes were then used to analyze the material out of two theoretical points of origin: Giddens (1997) self identity and Maslows (1943) growth- and deficiency needs. The study shows that it is not the recruiting of new co-workers that is the problem, instead it is to keep existing staff.