Diversity of Social Professions in Europe

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The diversity of social professions in Europe General information Social work in Europe has always been a disunited profession, no matter how much the politicians tried. But this diversity does not have to mean that Social work is a weak profession. On the contrary, it is an indication of the very particular nature of this professional field. There is no such thing as the social work task. It is not even certain that there is any such activity as social work, in the sense that nursing, teaching and hairdressing, for example are self-explanatory terms. Often the benefit of Social work is not obvious, nor does a common definition of this profession exist. A big reason for its special nature is that it is located “in between.” Social workers always have to be wary of being incorporated into one side or the other. The fields where Social work clashes with other disciplines or other areas are especially on a cultural, on an organizational and on a discourse level. On the cultural level one can see that Social work has its seeds in national cultural traditions. Then again it wants to break out of this particularism to orientate itself on a global basis, free of all obstacles. Looking at the collision on the organizational level, one sees that Social work in most countries has its organizational origins from non-governmental agencies and movements of civil society, soon it was included into networks of public service agencies, so it stands between state and general society interests as well as the users of social services. If one follows the discourse discussions, he or she may notices the problem of the position of Social work between the giants of social sciences, pedagogy and psychology. The discipline does not appear to be able to free itself neither from the other disciplines, nor from the reputation that it is borrowing knowledge off them, although it has
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