Jag är mer än min yrkesroll! : Betydelsen av etnicitet i mötet mellan socionom och klient

Sammanfattning: Sweden is considered one of the EU countries with the highest proportion of individuals witha foreign background. Sweden is therefore a highly culturally heterogenous country withdifferent ethnicities and religions. Certain terms, such as “immigrants”, are for this reason,often vague and negatively charged identities for individuals. The aim of this study was toexamine how social workers with a foreign background experience being treated by clientswith different backgrounds. The aim has been broken down into three questions: Does thetreatment differ from the client depending on his/her background? Does the social workerfeel that the treatment changes depending on his/her background? In what way do socialworkers believe that their way of looking at themselves is influenced by the client'streatment? A qualitative method, with semi-structured interviews with eight participants,was used. Data was analyzed using a thematic analysis and the selected themes werebackground, power, age and to tolerate and understand. Data were discussed from anintersectional perspective and with the help of previous research. The results show thatethnicity in many of the cases did not have a negative impact on how social workers weretreated. Something that affected the treatment to a greater extent was the social workers’ age,experience and positions of power.