ABSTRACT

Coherence between theory and practice, and transition between education and the profession are central challenges in social work and social worker education. This article analyzes how students and professional social workers within a Norwegian social work education establish such connections and how this changes in the transition between education and the profession. The study is inspired by Aaron Antonovsky’s concept, sense of coherence, and is based on qualitative data from focus group interviews with students, and with social workers after one year, and after five years in the profession. The analysis shows three different patterns for establishing meaningful connections. For students, notions of competence requirements in the profession create practice anxiety and an instrumental approach to coherence. For newly graduated social workers, this changes radically to understanding theory as a source for reflection on practice, and that the more instrumental connections can be developed within various occupational positions. The more experienced social workers describe the sense of coherence more as an individual development of personal competence. Finally, these empirical results are used to discuss challenges for social work as an ‘practice-based profession and an academic discipline’, and implications for social work education.

摘要

理论与实践的一致性以及教育与专业之间的过渡是社会工作和社会工作者教育的核心挑战。本文分析了挪威社会工作教育中的学生和专业社会工作者如何建立这种联系，以及这种联系如何在教育和职业之间的过渡中发生变化。该研究的灵感来自亚伦·安东诺夫斯基的概念“连贯感”，并基于对学生以及社会工作者一年和五年后的焦点小组访谈的定性数据。分析显示了建立有意义的联系的三种不同模式。对于学生来说，专业能力要求的概念会产生实践焦虑和保持连贯性的工具性方法。对于刚毕业的社会工作者来说，这从根本上改变了将理论理解为实践反思的来源，并且可以在各种职业职位中发展更有用的联系。经验丰富的社会工作者更多地将一致性感描述为个人能力的个人发展。最后，