e-Pedagogium 2021, 21(4):23-43 | DOI: 10.5507/epd.2022.001

Do the Internships of Social Work Students Contribute to Their Professional Identity?

Miloslava Šotolová

Contact:

Faculty of Education, Palacký University in Olomouc, Žižkovo náměstí 5, 770 40 Olomouc, Czech Republic

The text deals with the current topic of the professional identity of social workers, focusing on the phase in which professional identity is formed during undergraduate studies. The work seeks an answer to the question: How do third-year students (higher vocational and BA level of study) interpret their professional identity after completing a two-month internship? This question assumes that student work experience contributes to the formation of their professional identity. The work focuses on the importance of practical training during studies in the process of forming the professional identity of future social workers. The main theme of the theoretical part of the paper is identity as an initial concept for understanding professional (personal) identity, which plays a significant role at the start of the professional development of an educational institution. The subject of the empirical part of this work will be the search for the answer to the main research question: How does the two-month internship in the third year of students' studies affect their notion of professional identity? In other words, how does a student become a social worker who understands their professional identity and its relevance in coping with the practical demands of the social work profession? The article responds to the changing needs and innovations in the tertiary education of social work students as well as to the demands of social work practice (employers), which is calling for a change in the professional training of future social workers in the context of changing conditions for the performance of social work and social services, both in theoretical and practical training. Practical training requires flexible, creative, and adaptable social workers in whom an anchored professional identity can help manage the high job requirements and lead to increased resilience in coping with the demands of practice.

Keywords: identity as a socialisation process, professional identity, individual (personal) professional identity, teaching methods - reflection, self-reflection, practical education.

Received: November 16, 2021; Revised: November 16, 2021; Accepted: January 3, 2022; Published: March 30, 2022  Show citation