Ammattia etsimässä : aikuisopiskelijat kertovat sosiaaliohjaajakoulutuksesta ja narratiivisen pätevyyden kehittymisestä

Abstract

The present study focused on the development of social welfare supervisors' professional skills and professional identity during the time of their education. The study had a qualitative and phenomeno-logical approach. Its target group was made up of 20 adult students who studied in the diploma programme of social welfare supervision during the years 1994-1996. The data for the study consisted of the students' feedback reports, voice mails and interviews. The study applied the concept of a narrative in the description of social care education and the skills of client work, The basis of the study was the idea that learning a profession is identity work. The definition of identity work focuses on the concepts of contextual social constructivism. Identity work is not completely narrative and subjective but it is connected with the model narratives related to the professions of the social field and its operational environments. These model narratives, on the other hand, are collective, historically and locally formed stories on how actual social work and the related skills are learned in education. The analysis focused both on the structure and content of the narratives. Content was seen as internal narratives and drama. The time of the students' education and the development of their professional skills were constructed as developmental narratives in this study. These narratives contained interpretations on actual social work as given by the model narratives. The students' narratives were women's stories and generation-related narratives on how education develops a student both professionally and personally. The narratives were classified as women's stories because they contained descriptions on the protagonists' positions, relationships and identity. The study highlighted the narrative nature of social service work with the concept of narrative competence. Narrative competence means skills in verbal work and reflective skills related to the genre of social field narratives and to personal experiences. The result of the study was that the diploma programme in social welfare supervision offered the students opportunities of identity work and of the learning of narrative client work. This presupposed theoretical teaching, practical training and focusing on a long-term tutoring of the students. In the feedback discussions the teachers' models of goal-orientation and the use of reflection were highlighted because adult students assess the teachers' competence in terms of teaching skills and of the ability to conduct feedback discussions.