Socionom - Hjälpare på heltid, deltid eller övertid?

Sammanfattning: Abstract Author: Viktor Andersson & Daniel Pettersson Title: Social worker – Helper on full-time, part-time or overtime? A qualitative study about the perception of work and leisure in social work. Supervisor: Johan Cronehed There is a lively discussion in the community about what work is and what leisure is. The aim of our study was to look at how professional social workers set up to be social workers with a helping function beyond their working hours, at their leisure. Our study was conducted through interviews with social workers who are employed on full time in social services, residential treatment and school counselors. The method used to generate our empirical materials were inductive which means that the theory was selected by the empirical material. To analyze the collected empirical material, we used a theoretical basis approach that was rational choice. A general conclusion of our study was that social workers are keen to draw boundaries for what is work and what is leisure. This distinction is mainly an expressed desire, and what we have seen is that it is hard to maintain the desire in reality. There are however, according to the study, a conclusion that there is a pain threshold for where the line is to help in their spare time. The study also shows how social workers as professionals feels about giving money to beggars in their spare time outside their profession. The study shows that social worker means that there is a consensus that the knowledge by the profession is why the professional social workers is not donating money to beggars on either leisure or work time, because they do not think it helps. There is also a pattern in our empirical work that shows that social work is a little more than just a profession despite the fact that social workers being involved in the study says that social work is more of a career choice than a life mission