”Jag är ingen robot, jag är en människa” - En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterare inom ekonomiskt bistånds syn på sin yrkesroll och yrkesstatus

In this Bachelor thesis we examine how social workers within the department of social welfare benefits describe their profession and professional status in order to analize how this may impact the way they work. Eight social workers from five cities were interviewed in a qualitative semi-structured format. The interviews aimed to uncover how social workers define their profession and professional status as well as investigating how they percieve that clients define their professional role and how this affects them. Our results show that our respondents often experience preconceptions concerning what their job implies, how their professional status is lower ranked that that of their co-workers as well as compared to social workers in general. In line with previous studies on the subject we show how low wage, heavy workload and public mistrust all contribute to portray work with social welfare benefits as a low status occupation. Further, we discuss the tension between organizational professionalism and occupational professionalism, two contrasting views on how social work should be implemented. We argue that standardized and formalized social work in line with organizational professionalism results in the heavy workload that prevents social workers from staying true to their profession. Keywords: Professional status, profession, social workers, organizational professionalism, social welfare benefits