Discovering professional culture of specialists in social work in Russia: quantitative analysis

Until recent professional culture of specialists in social work in Russia had been formed on the horizontal level, but now the situation has changed since the process of standardization and regulation from top to down was... [ view full abstract ]

Until recent professional culture of specialists in social work in Russia had been formed on the horizontal level, but now the situation has changed since the process of standardization and regulation from top to down was introduced. To study professional culture of this group that undergoes processes of formation and re-formation seems to be a useful task in order to increase the effectiveness of social services in Russia.
In my work I study the complex phenomenon of professional culture basing on empirical research of the professional group of specialists in social work conducted in 2013. The main method of research was a questionnaire, 1124 specialists in a number of Russian cities were interviewed. Quantitative data analysis using SPSS was carried out, including factor analysis, cluster analysis, t-test, ANOVA, and others.
Operational definition of professional culture is based on the model of “cultural web” provided by Nord et al. In the center of this web is the paradigm (the core set of values and beliefs of professionals), and this paradigm is mainly reflected in two elements:
- symbols (motives of choice of profession, the evaluation of other people’s attitudes towards this profession, the steadiness of intention towards profession);
- rituals and routines (the authorities of a particular specialist divided into two parts, according to Hughes: licenses that are ways to limit access to the professional group, i.e. special education, and mandates that embrace the whole gamut of professional activities that can go beyond the scope set by license).
Four groups with different types of motivation are revealed and some differences between them are drawn in relation to power structures (attitudes of administration towards workers’ initiative) and control systems (autonomy in conduction of professional tasks).
Regarding rituals and routines several types of tasks with different levels of symbolic value are disclosed.