Socionomstudenternas transformering - En kvantitativ studie gällande socionomstudenters bild av socialt arbete samt förändringen av denna genom tänkta socialisationsprocesser

Sammanfattning: The Transformation of Social Work Students – a Quantitative Study of Social Work Students Perception of Social Work and the Change Thereof through the Thought Processes of Socialization This study focuses on social work students and how they perceive not only social work as a profession and what it means to be a good social worker, but also social work education and lastly the factors influencing their view of the three. The hypothesis guiding the research done for this essay was the following; that during the course of the social work education program the students become socialized in their perception and thus description of social work as well as the necessary qualities required to perform the tasks demanded of professional social workers by either clients or organizations. The method for gathering data, necessary for hypothesis testing, was of a quantitative nature through the use of questionnaires handed out to students on their first, respectively last year of the social work program. The questionnaires were manually entered into SPSS for processing. Results from the questionnaire show that students value educators (and course literature to some extent) as the principal influencers when it comes to social work. Results further indicate some degree of change between first- and last year students, predominantly in the area of qualities associated with ―good social workers‖. First years students tend toward assigning ―good social workers‖ with more general and emotional/interpersonal qualities whereas last year students are more precise, uniform and professionally oriented in their perceived ―good qualities‖. Preexisting research suggests that educators have a large role to play in the transformation of students attitudes towards a given profession and this study is tilted in the same direction.