The Issue of Professional Identity in Social Work as a Key Challenge to the Institutionalization of Social Work

Abstract

This article reviews the challenges faced by social work as a profession and as a discipline. The choice of challenges considered was determined by the level of their significance in the further survival and development of the profession. The main focus of the article is on the crisis of confidence in social work and considers the central question of what are the most influential factors that forming the identity of the profession. Conditionally these factors are divided into two groups that are interrelated. The first group is made up of factors that are inherent to social work and raise questions as to what kind of practice and theory social work is; what its specific objects and domains are; and what makes it unique and distinguishable from another disciplines and professions. Among these factors are ambiguity in the spheres of professional expertise and theoretical knowledge, as well as internal inconsistency in the concept of social work, which weakens the ability of the profession to form itself from within. The second group of factors relate to social work as social construction, conditioned by both the political and economic forces and the social expectations created within a society. The emergence of postmodern tendencies in conjunction with neo-liberal policies have led to a disruption in the values and legitimacy of the welfare state and its instrument, social work. These tendencies have undermined the foundation of professional practice and theory, which are based on humanitarian and egalitarian ideals, and have raised doubts about the role of social work in a modern society. As for the case of Russia, one of the most significant factors in the institutionalisation of social work lies in the sphere of political values that act as guidelines in the development of profession. The blending of these factors produces the central challenge facing social work nowadays: whether the profession can establish a greater degree of self-confidence in a period of rapid change and uncertainty.