Exploring Professional Identity of Social Workers Addressing Social and Ecological Injustices

Background and Purpose: 

Social work scholars point to the array of ecological problems faced around the world that disproportionately affect the vulnerable, marginalized, and oppressed client populations that social work seeks to address, making it an issue of social justice (Besthorn, 2013; Coates, 2013; Dominelli, 2012; Hoff & Rogge, 1996; Weber, 2012; Zapf, 2009). Despite this, the social work profession at large has been reluctant to claim an expanded professional identity which addresses social and ecological injustices.  Nevertheless, some social workers incorporate environmental concerns into their professional practice. Understanding the professional identities of these social workers and the reciprocal process of professional socialization will contribute to the transformation of practice and education for the profession (Barretti, 2004; Miller, 2013).

 Methods:A qualitative research study was conducted with social workers who are using their professional skills to address environmental concerns. The purposive sample (N = 17) of interview participants are social workers trained in the USA and were selected to maximize diversity for this exploratory study. The participants vary across fields (i.e., school social workers, social worker with refugees, direct practice therapists, community organizers, legislative policy advocates), level of social work practice (i.e., micro, mezzo, macro), and amount of time they have been responding to the environmental crisis in their social work practice (i.e., 3 months to 30 years). Individual semi-structured interviews lasted approximately two hours. This study employed a constructivist, grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006) which allowed for both deductive and inductive data collection and analyses. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analyzed in ATLAS.ti.7 using coding and constant comparisons to examine emerging themes and their interrelationships.

Results: These individuals were found to not only be shaped by formal and informal processes of professional socialization (i.e., social work education, peer influence), but they also shaped the profession by maintaining a professional identity that allows them to incorporate environmental concerns into their practice. Emerging themes included: 1) sources of support to address environmental concerns (i.e., reliance on social work ethics to validate practice with environmental issues, social work ethics guiding research methods selected and employed), 2) sources of tension when working on environmental concerns (i.e., others not considering their work with environment as part of social work, systemic oppression of governments or corporations having rights to extract natural resources which further oppresses local populations  and destroy ecosystems), and 3) ethical dilemmas (i.e., prioritizing sustainable, long-term care of humans and ecosystems over immediate human needs).

Conclusions and Implications:  This paper adds to the literature calling for an expanded professional social work identity that includes a response to social and ecological injustices by connecting it to our ethical standards. Findings also elaborate the literature on the professional socialization of social workers. Data from this study suggest the need to infuse supports into social work curriculum to encourage innovative work that can overcome challenges as social workers address environmental issues, such as those involved with environmental justice organizing. The findings are useful to social work educators, practitioners, professional social work associations, and interdisciplinary collaborations.