Identity awareness about the purposes and means of social work: results of an empirical study of social workers

Abstract

This article aims to present part of the empirical results of a survey not based on a representative sample applied to social workers in northern Portugal. A questionnaire was applied to obtain information about the discursive awareness that these professionals have of the relationship between formal knowledge and professional identity through the use they make of their knowledge about the great purposes and means of social intervention in their work context. The selection of these two themes for this empirical study is justified because, hypothetically, were found to be the most general and cross all sectors of social work activity and that, therefore, may have greater institutional value to support and strengthen professional identity. As a result, the data presented were intended to answer two hypotheses: a) to know the degree of consistency and unity that exists between the knowledge about the purpose and the knowledge about the means of intervention; b) to know the degree of transversality and homogeneity that exists in the use of this knowledge considering the generational, institutional formation and sectorial variation of activity. The main conclusions are that there is a sufficiently high degree of consistency and transversality in the use of this knowledge to support the strengthening of a professional identity in social work.