Social Workers in China: Professional Identity in the Making

Abstract

This article examines how front line Chinese social workers navigate between several professional ideals and mobilise different values through their everyday practices. Often starting the work without formal qualifications, their professional identity evolves through a combination of on-the-job training and supervision, studying national textbooks for qualifying exams, and exposure to international ideas about social work. Discussions about social work in China have typically centred on the applicability of Western models and the political dynamics between different stakeholders. The current study extends these discussions by taking a view ‘from below’ on how different—and at times conflicting—sets of professional standards are experienced by social workers and how they make decisions within this context. The analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork at a social service centre in Guangzhou that caters to both foreign and local populations. China has trained more than a million individuals in social work, and 312,000 people are employed as social workers (Ministry of Civil Affairs, 2018). This article seeks to illuminate the qualitative implications of this globally unprecedented quantitative expansion.