Thinking Professional Social Work: Expertise and Professional Ideologies in Social Workers’ Accounts of Their Practice

Summary: Two different frameworks are identified with respect to social work practice and views of professional powers. Findings: Accounts of social work practice, gathered in Italy, illustrate two styles of narrating and constructing the work experience. These are analysed following Mannheim’s seminal work on romantic and enlightenment styles of thought. Practitioners’ accounts differ in how sequences are constructed, in the meaning attributed to crucial aspects such as the understanding of the situation, and in the place attributed to theory. Two conceptions emerge of the relationship of professional social workers with clients, and of their power. Applications: The article contributes to the debate on the relation between theory and practice in social work. Theoretical models are not viewed as potential sources of practical suggestions, but as whole perspectives with which to engage. They are ways of seeing and doing ‘things’ which stimulate critical reflection on one’s own work. The two ways of conceiving professional powers that emerge from this study appear embedded in different cognitive orders. This invites those seeking to identify new ways of conceiving professional powers to look at the whole social work culture, without trying to isolate single aspects or elements of it. © 2006, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.