Socialsekreterares villkor för lärande i en digitaliserad socialtjänst : En kvalitativ fallstudie i en mellanstor kommun

Sammanfattning: Social work and social work practices are today heavily influenced by efficiency ideologies and society’s ongoing digitalisation process. Social workers themselves are educated to handle the tension between the ethical and judicial aspects of their jobs within the context of today’s social situation. However, the discretions needed for social workers to do so requires that they have the right conditions for learning at work. The purpose of this qualitative single-case study is to explore what significance digitalisation has had on social workers conditions for learning. Focus lies on concepts such as learning, competence and communication. The gathered material is mainly based on interviews with 10 peopleholding different positions within a government administrative body in which social work takes place. Results shows that while many have faith in the strengths and the future possibilities of digitalisation toimprove competency, communication and learning through digital efficacy and jurisprudence, this isn’t necessarily the case when applied to the everyday workings of social work practices. While the generalperception seems to be that these discrepancies are due to varying levels of digital competencyconnected with age, results show that this is only partially true, especially if competency is to mean more than individual capabilities or skill. Results have also shown that competency, communication and learning interlock with one another, and that it is difficult to achieve one without the other. Competency prerequisites the right conditions for learning, which in turn prerequisites good communication, and good communication prerequisites competence. My conclusion is that social work agencies such as the one in this case study need to plan and organise the digitalisation of their social work agency in such a way that includes learning, communication, and competence as three important aspects of digitalisations rather than relying on the digitalisation process to solve aspects of learning, communication and competence that do not live up to the ideologies of todays ideologies.