Mikael Bengtsson

---

Karriär och profession

SOCIETAL REFORMS AND development within the Swedish public sector have reframed the prerequisites for social workers, and other professions, and changed the area of work practice. I have used the career concept in order to investigate professional change because it provides a conceptual lens to illuminate stability and change and it captures both external and internal professional processes. To make use of this lens, I have broken up the professional group by tasks and also included three degree cohorts of social workers as conditions can vary with experience and between time-bound contexts. The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. The first is to examine and analyse the interplay between external and internal factors in the development of social work as a profession. The second is to examine and analyse the internal organizing of the social work profession through the dynamic be-tween careers, profession and organizations. The following six questions are guiding the work: 1. What does the work area look like in the social worker profession and what are the differences be-tween the three cohorts? 2. What factors shape positions in the field? 3. What positions appear in the field and how do they appear in three time-bound contexts? 4. What does the status-hierarchical order look like and why does the order appear as it does in the field? 5. What forms of mobility arise in the field from the movements and status-hierarchical order and why does mobility look like this? 6. How can the dynamics between careers, profession and organizations be understood as part of the devel-opment of the social worker profession? The results of the cohorts by employer and scope of practice show the significance of societal chang-es in the field. The profession’s development is affected by the interplay between job opportunities and individuals’ responses, external and internal forces. The cohort-based differences also show movement from certain ‘core’ areas and functions within the profession during careers. The social workers thus appear as a group gathered around certain segments in the welfare services sector, but the same type of employer or scope of practice often includes several of the eight positions that emerges in the field. The positions form a bipartite status-hierarchical order related to profession and organization, an order that is manifested through the mobility of the three cohorts. From the concepts of profession and career, this study has developed a way to explore the interplay between external and internal factors in a professions’ development and its inner organizing. Differentiation and position are active key concepts in the model together with a functional basis and significant individual, organizational and professional factors that define positions. This model of examining interplay and inner organizing can be applied to other professions and contexts.