Paper for the ESA congress, 28th August – 1st September 2001, Helsinki

Preamble
On the 8th of June 2001 Russian people have been witnessing a construction of social work history: the 300 years anniversary of social service in Russia has been celebrated. About a half a year ago, President Vladimir Putin has announced this day to be a professional day of social workers. The history of social work profession is now being traced back not just to pre-imperial times of baptising of Russia in 10th century but rather to a very significant period of state power and massive reforms. Peter the Great, Russian emperor has signed a decree on institutionalizing the sickest and providing them with help. This document also pronounced policy towards the worthy and unworthy poor: those beggars who can in fact work, should be brought to labor, and if they would be caught begging again, they should be beaten by sticks and sent to Siberia. The authorities today want social workers to identify with the Great Russian history and ideas of those times can be recognized in certain trends in social services, including employment service programs and targeted help (adresnaia pomoshch). In my presentation, I will focus on some peculiarities of professional development of social work in Russia in 1990s.

Functional social work and dysfunctional social environment
The literature suggests that there are different approaches to the concept of  professionalization. Some sociologists (Durkheim 1957; Etzioni 1964; Parsons 1951) have described it as a positive and progressive force which promotes “general health of the social body” (Durkheim 1933:29) and fosters social change in ways that minimize social conflict and disintegration. This approach deals with the issue of division of labor and poses the question of what needs of society meets the occupational functions of the professions.
From this perspective, social work exerts a substantial influence on the exploration of the nature of social problems, shaping of the values of a civil society. In Soviet Russia, some functions of social work were carried out by a number of agencies in the domains of four ministries – Education, Health Care, Social Promotion and Internal Affairs. Certain similar functions were undertaken by Communist Party organizations, Comsomol (Youth Communist Organization) and trade-unions. However, the whole system of this work was arranged by departmental and bureaucratic principles, which in many cases reduced its effectiveness. After the World War II during cold war period social programs in the USSR were chronically inadequate to decrease poverty, crime, and mortality rate. The huge state appeared unable to solve these problems. The decade of the 1990s shows considerable political, economic, social and cultural change in  Russia. The scope and depth of change has been dramatic in regards to the lives of ordinary people. The transition to a market economy has led to radical changes in former Soviet society which was not highly differentiated by income factor and the majority of population lived in circumstances which might be called “equality in poverty” because of the shortage of food and goods and inability of population to afford even a little comfort. Economic reforms have brought to the shops a variety of products, one can see luxury cars on the streets, the rich bank buildings and villas of successful entrepreneurs appear all over. However, no more than one third of Russian society can consume these fruits of perestroika (economic and political restructuring of post-Soviet society) while two third of population are on or below the subsistence minimum. The breakdown of state economy have caused rapid decrease in the quality of life of the majority of population, a set of new social problems, further deterioration of the position of poor, disabled, elderly and children.
In response to these changes the new educational programs and caring professions emerged and developed their extensive network throughout the country. As a profession and educational program, social work has been introduced in Russia in 1991. It appeared in academic and professional sphere along with significant political reforms, long-term economic crisis, and increasing social differentiation. The period of 90s in Russia is a time of growth of social services in a large variety of forms. A wide network of social services was established under the responsibility of Ministry of Labor and Social Development. Ministries of Education and Health Care have introduced positions of social pedagogues and social workers into regular and special education, hospitals and mental health centers. The social workers’ activity helps to decrease social inequality, to meet the needs of those people who happened to be in the periphery of a society, in social isolation, whose rights are violated. Social work plays the role of intermediate agency between individuals, social groups, private and public institutions. It is important in context of transition period in Russia when many people become socially excluded on the base of their age, sex, poverty, disability, place of living.
Education and professional training of social workers is now established in more than 120 higher education institutions all over Russia. The quality of such education has achieved good standards of performance through intensive national and international exchange. The occurrence of social work as a new educational discipline coincided with the restructuring of social sciences and humanities in Russian universities. Current revival and animation of social thought in Russia, supported by the Russian government as well as by private initiatives and international foundations, gave raise to public discussion on the matters of social inequality, exclusionary practices and social problems. The professionalization of social work, however, has been hindered by several parallel developments, or disfunctions of its both internal and external contexts.
First, inadequate financial resources on federal and local level effects quality of services and motivation of their employees. Low salary of social services employees do not contribute to the prestige of social work as a profession. While the needs for social work professionals are still big, salary and status in these positions are extremely low. Although university social work education and social work agencies are supported from federal budget, however, both settings in the late 1990s are under-financed. Heads of university departments and agencies are looking for private funds. The changes in political and economic situation of the late 1998 promise possible reduction in regional and federal spending in social welfare programs which might lead to some cuts of social work positions. It brings less stability into the construction of professional identities for those who teach and work in practice.
Second, while the number of social services is growing, different agencies do not perform the same level of efficiency and many of them are at the very beginning of their development. The public perception of the social work in today’s Russia is partially based on the Soviet history of social services. In Soviet Union, people use to name the state system of social protection and such organizations with a short word “sobes”. Sobes was bureaucratic world of impolite clerks whose responsibility was to deal with pensions and special payments (for example, on funerals). The functions of employees did not require professional qualification, rather, they were set up according to the instructions.  The organizational culture of some social services today has inherited features of sobes. Certain agencies simply have changed their names while not significantly changing the staff and directorate. Old practices of administration, including patterns of recruitment and organizational socialization in such agencies support extremely rigid power hierarchy, while interests of clients are subordinated by bureaucracy norms and looked upon downwards. This organizational culture resists innovative processes which might threaten its bureaucratic bases. It is demonstrated in cases of re-training or further qualification programs for executives and employees of such agencies. Some of the directors and employees who attended classes were poorly motivated to challenge their understanding of social work and social problems, rather, they desperately needed a certificate. This is why wonderful initiatives and renovation of the principles on which the social welfare of the family and children are built sometimes only serve to lead practitioners into a dead end of outmoded techniques and conceptions. However, in many cases further qualification programs for social services employees lead to a fruitful exchange and successfully established partnerships between practitioners and university teachers.
Third, it is not only organizational but larger cultural environment which produces discriminatory attitudes towards people with social problems and hampers the professional performance of social workers. Such attitudes may be expressed in everyday interactions, mass media, special literature and education. The World Health Organization's language is new to scholars and people in Russian government, and except for a few professionals and researchers who use the term “limited abilities of a child,” little has changed in the language of professions or Russian welfare legislation. The term "invalid" is used very widely to define the status of a person in the welfare system. One important aspect of the development of social work is the movement away from an individualistic, pathological approach to disability towards a social model which takes account of the wider social context in which disability is experienced and indeed constructed. However, the concept of discriminatory language is very new in Russia, and people may not always recognize discrimination as attached to the words they use. For example, in 1995 the journal “Social Protection” published an article entitled “The Way to oneself. Advises of a Psychologist” (Levtchenko 1995:81-84). The author was marked with a sign of power as a professional expert – “psychologist”, while the language of the article was profoundly discriminatory.  People with handicap were described with such words as ‘strongly expressed ugliness’; ‘having the features of personality deformation not only because of appearance but also because of inability to form a family’; ‘permanently sitting home’; ‘animal-like behavior’. As for healthy people, the author wrote, they “treat disabled in a wrong way when encourage and assure them  that physical defect will not hinder the communication with [persons of] other sex, [the healthy people] do not understand that for a sick individual it would be more useful to communicate with the similar.” The author advises “first of all to try to teach teenager with handicap right forms of contact and relations with the similar.” The expression “the similar” in this representation marks typisation which operates on a base of negative stereotypes and goes along with social exclusion. Professional education can help social workers understand how images of “expertise” contain discriminatory attitudes. In words of Neil Thompson, “a social work intervention with a disabled person which fails to recognize the marginalized position of disabled people in society runs the risk of doing the client more of a disservice than a service.” (Thompson 1993: 11)
Fourth, although a lot has been done in Russia since 1991 within social work education and practice, much needs to be revised while the good experience need to be disseminated and enhanced. The language of the first textbooks on theory, methodology and technologies of social work lags far behind practice and sometimes is overburdened with heavy theoretical constructions. Recently published textbooks use more democratic approach in talking about social problems and social work. Sometimes, nevertheless, old explanatory models are reproduced in academic discourse of social work. In the course of professionalization of social work in Russia  an important role belongs to scholars and educators. The occurrence of social work as a new educational discipline coincided with the restructuring of social sciences and humanities in Russian universities. Faculties of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, scientific communism and history of Communist party were renamed into those of philosophy, sociology, and national history. Many of such faculties initiated new educational programs in social work (or sociology). During Soviet times, Marxist philosophy played the role of basic knowledge for social studies and humanities. Thus the uncertainty of the content of social work and the traditions of fundamental writing of Soviet philosophers explains why the language of the first textbooks on theory, methodology and technologies of social work lags far behind practice and sometimes is overburdened with heavy theoretical constructions. Recently published textbooks use more democratic approach in talking about social problems and social work (see Holostova 1998). Many new and young faculty members with competence in modern knowledge in social sciences and humanities were hired at the university departments of social work. Sometimes, nevertheless, old explanatory models are reproduced in academic discourse of social work. Besides, consideration of psychology as a basic methodology in modern knowledge on social work, leads towards uncritical acceptance of everything which is written in scholarly publications. For example, one textbook recommends social worker a certain approach in dealing “with socially discriminated people and groups which consider themselves as infringed unfair [sic!] (people with disabilities, families of many children, refugees, unemployed, lonely elderly people, delinquents, drug users and others)” (Gouslyakova 1998: 121). This approach is derived from a publication in Russian Psychological journal.  Because working with such groups is very complex and not always successful, a social worker must possess following psychological knowledge: “Usually socially discriminated groups behave in stereotypic way – in general they have two modes of behavior. One of them is characterized with increase of conflict of interpersonal relations, … devaluation of group values, intention to leave the group.  Another one is related to increase of group solidarity and firmness,… intention to extol oneself above the other groups and people. Both of these modes of behavior are destructive…” (Ageev 1990:18-19). Such a discourse contributes to stigmatization of oppressed by attaching to those who suffers from the society the attributes of abnormal, deviant, luckless and dangerous. However, in general there is a remarkable trend in Russian academia towards research and educational programs which focus on issues of social inclusion and human rights.
 Fifth, an obstacle in the development of social services and profession of social work in Russia is lack of professional knowledge and necessary skills. From the very beginning of this profession in Russia, the lack of communication and collaboration between the university departments of social work and the social work agencies became a pattern because education has started while positions were being occupied by non-professionals. Even today, nine years after the beginning of social work education in Russian universities, certain representatives of social welfare still cannot understand why a social worker needs to have relevant educational background from university; they are not aware that there is a theory that reveals social work from within, as well as a whole classification of its methods. In spite of such facts, in many regions social work graduates are in great demand. If in early 1990s university departments of social work were unable to arrange a field placement for a social work student in a local social work agency, in the end of this decade the links between education and practice became much stronger.
In context of post-communist Russia, social work is an important partner with the other professions, the State and citizens initiative in insuring that the common good in not neglected. Now that Russian population is facing dashed hopes and broken promises, the urgent need for effective social work services becomes more obvious. The quality of social work performance largely depends on the level of professionalism of those who perform their functions under the umbrella of a certain profession.

What’s wrong with the traits?
The matter of professional competence is dealt with by another explanation of professionalism. It is attribute or trait approach which struggles with a problem of “whether or not a given occupation is a ‘true’ profession”, and therefore, poses a question, “what are the common features which separate professions from non-professions?” Since 1915 when Abraham Flexner – a prominent scholar and consultant to the medical profession – has developed a list of attributes that presumably distinguished an ideal type of the profession, social scientists still had not achieved a consensus on answering this question (see Reeser and Epstein 1996: 70-72). The attempts were made to provide the attributes of professionalism which would then make it possible to assess how closely a given occupation approached this ideal type. Then professionalization can be understood as a process whereby an occupation succeeds in claiming the status, and therefore the rewards and privileges, of a profession.
In such a way an occupation would be defined by different authors either as a profession, semi-profession or non-profession dependently on what list of traits was chosen as a standard. For example, Flexner considered following features as the most important traits of the profession: engagement in intellectual operations involving individual responsibility, the use of science and learning for a practical goal, applying knowledge through techniques that are educationally communicable, self-organizing, altruistic motivation, possession of a professional self-consciousness (Reeser and Epstein 1996:70-71). As Greenwood argues, systematic theory, community sanction, an ethic code and a professional culture, are the attributes of the profession, besides, all these are to be grounded in an altruistic, vocational desire to serve the interests of the community (Greenwood 1965). Another example of the listing of professional attributes is Millerson’s list which includes the use of skills based on theoretical knowledge; education and training in these skills; the competence of professionals proved by examinations; a code of conduct to ensure professional integrity; performance of a service that is for the public good; a professional association that organizes members (Abercrombie et al. 1984:196).
What set of traits would be appropriate for Russian social work? It seems that social work in Russia has nearly all attributes of Millerson’s list, however, each of the traits can only be attached to a separate field of social work education or practice. For example, students are getting education and training while practitioners perform a service. Whether or not they provide service using skills based on theories depends on whether or not a practitioner possesses a professional qualification. Many of them do not have appropriate educational background. During the time when the first cohort of social work students were getting their professional education at universities, the newly opened positions in social services have been occupied by anybody seeking job and aquatinted with director of a service. Those who happen to be directors of new services, often started from zero level or knowing very little about social work. What they needed was obedient and devoted employees, and often the informal criteria of good relationships were more important than relevant qualification. However, if in case of hiring a medical professional or psychologist, the corresponding diploma was a prerequisite, then it was not for “social worker” and “specialist in social work”. Thus the former pre-school teachers, ex-nomenklatura (employees of the Soviet administration), demobilized officers, unemployed engineers and many others became first generation of “specialists in social work”. Although more university graduates each year will come to the different social work agencies, many graduates prefer higher paid jobs. Until now the qualification of employees is a painful problem in the development of social services in Russia. According to the estimation done by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, social services in 1997 needed more than 450 thousand specialists, while universities and other institutions of higher education could only satisfy 7% of their needs because number of graduates was 6640 (see Zhukov 1997:51).
Understanding inadequacy of qualification of many employees and declared goals of new social services, Russian Ministry of Social Protection (and later, Ministry of Labor and Social Development) required from directors and employees to gain certified professional knowledge through the system of higher education, vocational training, further qualification programs. The attempts to retrain the staff were obstructed because of lack of resources. These educational programs were rather expensive because they were designed to reproduce in short and intensive manner  (one or two years) the training which normally is provided for four or five years. In the years of 1992-93 such courses were paid out of federal budget but later it became a prerogative of local municipalities which often were unable or unwilling to pay for professional education of social services employees. For example, in 1997 in Perm’ (a big city in Ural area) and its surroundings, out of 1988 administrators and specialists of social services, there were 612 employees with diploma of higher education, including 127 with judicial, 146 with medical and 14 with “social” (social work, sociology) (Reutov, Zamaraeva 1997:74).
Due to the reforms in education, in Russia today there are two educational standards for social work adopted: for five years program leading to the diploma of “the specialist of social work” and  for four years program leading to the BSW degree. The latest is possible to develop into MSW program, that is being done for some Russian universities (ex: Saratov State Technic University). Such situation causes a lot of debates both among educators and practitioners concerning “whether we need bachelors and masters?” and “who are they?” In the meanwhile, the admission of students to the departments of social work is usually associated with high level of competition among the candidates. Analogously with social sciences and humanities, this educational program has recently become very popular.
Conferences on theoretical and practical issues are arranged once, sometimes twice a year in Moscow and in regional centers. Institute of Social Work, recently renamed into Institute of Social Technologies, publishes textbooks for students, conference collection books, periodicals (“Russian Journal of Social Work”). But there still is a lack of literature for students and practitioners. Until 1998 there were only two books translated – one from Swedish by G.Bernler and L.Jonsson “Theory of Psychosocial Work”, and another from English by A.Pincus and A.Minachan “Practice of Social Work”, several books are published as international collections of articles.
Simultaneously with social work under the domain of Ministry of Education there was established a profession and educational program of social pedagogy. Social pedagogues are working in schools and other educational institutions. Social work and social pedagogy are very similar in terms of when and how they originated in this country, curricula for professional training provided for them and declared goals. Sometimes both of these specialists can be found at the same setting  where the division of their tasks might be odd. By 1998 Ministry of Health Care introduced social work into psychiatric hospitals.
A social worker (and a social pedagogue) strengthens his or her professional identity by taking part in professional association. During the early 1990s four professional associations were created (Association of Social Pedagogues and Social Workers, Association of Social Workers, Association of Social Services Employees, Association of Schools of Social Work), special periodicals were established: “Rossiyski zhurnal sozial’noi raboty (Russian Journal of Social Work)”, “Sozial’noe obespetchenie (Social Promotion)”, “Sozial’naya zaschita (Social Protection)”, “Rabotnik sozialnoy sluzhby (Worker of Social Service)”.
Professional self-consciousness is an attribute derived from the Flexner list of professional traits. The main issue which seems to be an obstacle in the course of the development of social work, is an unclearness of professional identity. The first social workers in Russia in the beginning of 1990s were delegated functions of home help for those (elderly or disabled) who could not live without assistance. By that time people got used to see in shops somebody with ID of “social worker” who with no queuing could buy food and other necessities. In order to distinguish those “social workers” from such social services employees whose professional qualification required diploma of higher education, Russian Ministry of Social Protection invented a position of “specialist in social work”. But the words “social work” for many has already got the meaning of unqualified activity which can easily be done by anybody.
As it was discussed above, from the viewpoint of functionalist approach, the professionalization of social work is a positive and progressive force in the society. This perspective helps to account for the origin and development of this profession in Russia. However, it fails to answer the question of whether or not social work here possesses the necessary attributes of and can be defined as a profession.  Speaking in terms of professional competence, the traits approach provides an observer with tools of evaluation of both occupational group and individual worker whose performance may or may not fit in to the list of selected qualities. In its turn, this perspective does not explain the conflicts which arise between different occupations where their value systems and areas of responsibility overlap.

Defining boundaries of social work: the symbolic faith for the resources
The negative theories of professionalization oppose both the idea of professional work as consensual  service for the common good and attribute or definitional approach. Apart from theorizing about the traits and attributes of the profession, the third approach is represented by critical perspective, including Marxists and neo-Marxist vision of professions as supporting the status quo in their attempt to maintain or acquire power and status in the class system (see for example Mills 1953; Freidson 1970; Larson 1977). Looking at how professions organized themselves to  obtain market power, sociologists of this radical/critical approach characterized professionalization as a process of creation and control of a market for the services of an occupation, the assertion of high status, and upward social mobility. The occupational control approach originates from a conflict, action, model of society in which competing groups struggle to secure their own interests (see Jones and Joss 1995:18). This model explains why there are difficulties in collaboration between professionals from different occupational areas.
Every profession tries to clearly define a circle of issues which relate to professional’s competence, making thus limited the professional’s world view and claiming unique and legally supported competence. This basic strategy of professionalization may cause serious conflicts between professionals and those who attempt to break their monopoly of status and expertise. Regarding social work, there are two main points of such conflict. Firstly, graduates of social work departments often encounter hostility when coming to work within social services where the majority of positions are occupied by people with inappropriate educational and professional background. In this regard the cultural meaning of profession is to be taken into account in a sense of  “what people are doing at their working places, or what is written in their working history records and resumes”. Then those “professionals” who started working without diploma not merely occupied positions which were presumably open for qualified social workers. They have also been shaping written and non-written criteria of professional activity, values and meanings of quality of services, practices which may or may not correspond with the existing models of social work.
Secondly,  social work as a new profession overlaps with new and traditional ones which may also experience renovation.  Examples of the these are social pedagogy and practical psychology. At the same time with the rise of social work, a big concern with “practical psychology” took place in Russia. Many universities started providing education and short training programmes for therapists. Before that psychology was mainly associated with measuring intellectual capacities and testing psychological peculiarities with the help of highly elaborated questionnaires. The positions of psychologists were open in schools, social services, and correctional institutions. (It does not mean, however, that all psychologists working now in schools, can really help the child, teacher or family. Often they only do testing as they did not complete a necessary training for practical work. At the same time, school administration may be satisfied with such situation because today the mainstream ideology of school education is rather competitive than supportive). For social work thus it is a symbolic faith with psychologists and social pedagogues for the domain of expertise and practical application, and to some extent this faith resulted in limitation of the meaning of social work.
Let us see how social worker’s identity is represented by the academic community – university professors and researchers. According to some, among important professional qualities of the social worker there are “professional competence (wide knowledge in the fields of pedagogy, psychology, law, sociology); kind attitude towards people, their problems and situations; managerial and communicative abilities; moral-ethical level; psychological endurance” (Poluektova, Yakovleva 1994:47-58). The message is that social work is a mixture of several different professions plus certain features of personality and skills of rational behaviour. Another important concern is regarding the above mentioned  boundaries of professions in our case are built by the Big Psychologist for the Little Social Worker: “Psychosocial work is needed when a client experiences psychological difficulties because of social disadaptation… Elements of psychosocial work can partially be conducted by social worker, teacher, medical doctor, as well as be the central activity of a practical psychologist” (Belicheva 1997:269,270). This interpretation has its “goods and bads”. The experts of today’s social work narrow its content but at the same time they try to prevent clients from mistreatment by those who works without a diploma. This example illustrates the idea of occupational control as Jones and Joss put it: “Where different professions have similar areas of work, the boundaries between them may overlap and result in conflict. This often expresses itself through the different value sets held by different professions, with each group claiming legitimacy for its own theoretical paradigms or methods of working” (Jones and Joss:18).
A social construction of social work thus implies an activity in social sphere, in the first place associated with realization of social policy through distribution of social pensions and benefits. Psychosocial support is done by practical psychologists, working with children in schools is prerogative of social pedagogues, while advocacy and group work with women, people with disabilities and others whose rights are violated, is provided by NGOs. The period of 90s is also featured by the rise of church activity which humanitarian endeavors include, for example, shelters for abandoned children. The development of church,  NGOs and Grass Roots organizations is a very recent phenomenon for Russia, which could have made them  another important resource of social services network. Although it is an unfamiliar structure, public agencies of social work sometimes are getting financial help from different sponsors and non-governmental foundations. In Moscow, for example, there are more than 500 NGOs which are dealing with support for people with disabilities, families of many children, lonely elderly people. However, volunteers are recruited usually only among the students who conduct their field placement at the agency.
There still is a tendency to define social work as home help and welfare services but not applicable in counseling and patient-connected services. At the same time, since 1994 there is a trend to relate social work to rehabilitation teamwork practices as well as to employment service. Yet social workers in rehabilitation agencies and schools are often seen by other professionals, administrators and clients as registration makers primarily and not too involved in treatment and community-oriented functions. Social workers and administrators of social services are unaware about professional community of social workers and international experience of social work, they lack publicity, public relations, inter-agency co-operation. They feel isolated when they have no contacts with other services which work in the same field in another city. At the same time, a hidden competition for financial resources may take place between similar agencies in one city. However, yet it is not an open market competition where professional competence of an agency or of an individual worker is a social and political phenomenon. The competency movement has only started as the trend towards greater executive control of the economic workplace. In today’s Russia context, the current dominant approach to competency and evaluation of service delivery is still rooted in the old practices of administrative revision where the informal negotiations between agency director and ministry official contribute to continuation of  poor service performance.
University departments of social work are intimately involved in the concern with the enhancement of the profession but there is no openly voiced criticism of social work education as well as of social work practice or their incongruency.  The question is debated within academia and public agencies, whether social work should be considered a distinct field of  theory and practice or should it always be a mixture of psychology, pedagogy and welfare services as well as health and community services? Yet overlapping of professions is not seen as inevitable nor desirable. Social, economic, medical, and vocational services for children of special needs, the disabled, aged, youth remain fragmented. Many agencies and university departments are still acting as islands unto themselves, apparently completely oblivious or, worse still, unconcerned about the need for cooperative and collaborative education. Russian welfare itself, as a system, is not fully integrated due to the poor articulation of the activities of public agencies.

Reading Professional Performance
From its beginnings in Russia as a self-conscious occupational group, social work is struggling to determine what constitutes its justifiable boundaries among other emerging professions and traditional ones. A necessary component of a professional identity is self-presentation of social workers. By looking at what the social workers really do and in what terms they define their practice, we can continue our discussion on professionalization of social work in Russia. As it was noted above, there is a lack of agreement about characteristics of professions among sociologists who use the attribute approach to the professionalization. However, the shift in emphasis to professional performance has produced some consensus. Among the areas of agreement there are following: the role of uncertainty, the role of knowledge, the role of values, relations with client, self-image, and method of professional development (Jones and Joss:20-21). So, for example, theoretical orientation in knowledge base for the profession means presence or absence of theories, their degree of sophistication and, importantly, the values attached to them. The value base includes ‘informal’ rules and meanings which derive from professional and organizational subcultures. Relations with clients vary between exclusive control, demonstration of mastery, authority and expertise, from the one side and collaborative on-going dialogue and reflective contract, from the other. The self-image of the professional “reflects the value base of the occupation and the cultural norms into which individuals are socialized through recruitment and training process” and is exemplified by craftsman, expert, operative and facilitator  (Jones and Joss:21) Learning by experience in professional development rely on a trial and error basis with very little building of models of practice. Another methods of professional development are learning from experience which is not necessary exclusively direct and learning in formal academic setting. Using these dimensions, Jones and Joss (p.21-27) distinguish three main professional models: practical professional, technical expert (with its ‘variant’ – managerial expert professionalism), and reflective practitioner.  Then, for example, a metaphor for practical professional’s self-image would be the “craftsman” for who demonstrates his expertise and mastery over the clients, learns by trial and error.
Let us see how the dimensions of professional performance are reflected and constructed by the social services employees interviewed in Saratov, Russia by the faculty from the Dept of Social Work at Saratov State Technic University. The interviewed were 19 women and one man in the age from 24 to 51. The group of respondents included five heads of the departments of social services, eight specialists in social work and seven social workers. The experience of working in social service was ranging from 2 up to 8 years. No one had a diploma in social work. The data collection was designed as semi-structured interviews. While talking about the role of knowledge in social work, the informants mentioned medical, pedagogical, judicial, and psychological knowledge, however, not in relation to concrete skills. The method of professional development is by experience – the respondents have noted that the systematic knowledge in social work is not necessary: “Worldly experience helps a lot… One needs kindness, sympathy for people. Knowledge has nothing to do with that”. In their relations with clients, social workers said, they have strong sense of the moral debt and experience empathy. In these moments, emotions have been strongly expressed: "It seems like we  ourselves perceive this pain… Even if a person was strong, he [or she] anyway goes through this”.
Consensual exchange with clients is reported in the following excerpts: It is my pleasure to talk with them…I myself learn from them. It is interesting to visit these families, to communicate with them… I am a very ill person, too, and look how the others handle similar situation”. This fragments also point on the self-image of social workers which does not fit exactly to any of the definitions from Jones and Joss classification: it is not an expert, neither facilitator. A growing number of publications on history of Russian social work contribute to the craft or practical professionalism in social construction of social work in Russia. The focus is on charitable activities, sponsorship, values of orthodox religion regarding the period before the socialist revolution of 1917, and formation of the system of social security during the Soviet times.  However, self-presentation of social workers in the interviews only partially reminds us of the “Craftsman” or the “Master” image of professionalism, more likely, this is an “Apprentice” learning from the client. The client in this situation rather seems to play the role of a craftsman because during Soviet era people used to keep their many problems to their own and often handled them without professional help. Social work rises unusual issue of not correcting or curing but helping people, and develops unfamiliar practice of sharing private concerns with a representative of public agency. Practices of individual confession in church or in the office of psychoanalyst have a long history in the West, but they were absent in Soviet culture (see Kharkhordin 1997). In modern days’ Russia people yet are not oriented towards getting services of such a kind. In case of necessity they apply to the more familiar agencies – health care organisations, militia, and consider social services as another name of the former system for social promotion (sozial’noye obespecheniye = sobes). While talking about the social value of their work, informants expressed ambiguity of its status – social work exists, it is important for the society, however, the surrounding people have no idea about it while the mass media keep silent: “This work is necessary. Little is known about this service”.  “Advertising it is not enough about our service, if [one says] “social worker”, then at once [people respond] "sobes", categorically”.
If identity is stabilized, persons accept themselves, feeling at ease with this identity. Identity forms as a result of social interaction, and problems with identity occur if a person feels alienated from society through, for example, ethnic difference, unemployment or disregard of one’s occupation as useful and necessary for the society. In fact, in news papers or on TV there is nothing about social work, while there is a lot about social policy measures and social problems. The images of mass culture are important both in the mode of their formal image construction and surface, as well as in terms of the meanings and values which they communicate. Advertising can be seen as providing some functional equivalents of myth. Like myths, ads frequently resolve social contradictions, provide models of identity, and celebrate the existing social order (Kellner 1992:158). Consider, for instance, how ads contribute to social work identity formation within contemporary Russia’ society. Advertising washing powder is a woman about 40 years old, shown at her home, and as the subtitles inform us, this is “Elena Feldman, an employee of social sphere”. Comparing to ads of deodorant and breath fresher which provide a model for “business woman”, advertising of detergent in these years never sends a message “she is employed”. An exception is an image of hot-dog seller, puffy and clean housewife-like lady. Advertising of detergent usually represent a cozy, smoothly moving woman with home keeping interests. Among other texts related to domestic necessities which construct the image of housewife, the advertising with “Elena Feldman” actually equals housewife with a social worker. This advertising provides a repertoire of contemporary mythology on social work which is shown to be women’s domain and is ascribed with certain “feminine” qualities (she is static, tender, likes animals, and takes care for her house). In Soviet state, in spite of the official propaganda which represented women as equal to men, the mainstream feminine professions were traditionally associated with household duties (cleaning, cooking, caring, and nursing). Women were given a contradictory message to be both workers and family keepers which turned out to be a double burden on women’s shoulders in the conditions of patriarchal division of household duties. In modern Russia social work is presented as a new female occupation which again fulfills the traditional functions of family members.
At the same time, there is another interpretation of such professional self-image: social worker has just been in the same position as his or her client but accidentally and temporarily started playing a role of the professional helper. In other words, social worker and a client are not separated by the barrier of professionalism, class, and the nature of experienced difficulties in their lives. What brings people to this work and what keeps them here? It is obviously not the money neither prestige. The following excerpts show the respondents’ evaluation of material assets of their work: “Small, miserable salary… In this business the salary does not matter… For woman it is certainly low, but acceptable [salary]. Though it is “crumbs”, they are  constant and there is less risk”. The respondents mentioned that work is not difficult, rather it is interesting. Another important value of their work is self-realization: "This work helps me to survive, to overcome my own difficulties". It helps to fulfil their own needs: "I always wanted to be work with children", "I am of such an age, when one starts to look for the meaning of life and one’s vocation… would like to leave a trace in people’s hearts". Flexible working hours permit women-social workers to take care for their children or to look after ill relatives. Besides, these positions were open while there is not a big chance to find another job: “There are not very many options to find jobs, no choices”, “It doesn’t matter where to work, let only the record of service continue, “[I am] working temporarily here, until have found other work”. “My girl  is sick frequently, there is nobody to look after her. Besides, I am older than thirty years now, they nowhere hire me, so you will work [here], whether you want to or do not want to”. At the same time, the central motive in all interviews is related to the wish of being useful to people: “I would like to help, [with] some kindness, not even material [support], just purely psychological”.  “[We have a] large effect - both mums and children leave with shining eyes - it inspires a lot!” Some of the interviewed reported, they are got accustomed to their clients, developed friendly relationships with them, and do not imagine any other work: “I have so much got used to them … I already could not [be] without these families”.
What are the positive implications of this situation in Russian social work of 1990s? Radical approach to social work and studies available on professionalism in social work (see Reeser and Epstein 1996:104) warn us that greater professionalization results in decreased activism, and increases the gap between professionals and the clients. Therefore, before “collective mobility” project is established in many agencies to achieve professional status, there might be a better chance to integrate efforts of universities, public social work agencies and citizen activism. Nonprofit sector can facilitate the development of a new philosophy of social services and ensure that the center serves the margins. However, the successful collaborative integration of different public and private organizations dealing with social services requires the cycle of experiential learning (see Kolb 1984) which involves concrete experience, reflective observation, theoretical conceptualization and active experimentation sensitive to the specific contexts of professional practice. A great help could be provided by regular seminars jointly organized by university teachers, researchers, administration of social services, and service providers. In order to increase their efficiency, different social work agencies can use their mutual efforts to arrange for innovative projects and actions for social development, they can exchange experience and ideas to lobby their demands at parliament on the local or federal level.

Concluding remarks
The functionalist, attribute and critical approaches which have been discussed on the foregoing pages, are not isolated theoretical perspectives, in contrary, each of them sheds some light on the problem of professionalization. Only when they are combined together, they can provide multifaceted vision of a social process through which the society starts defining a given occupation as a profession, and , importantly, the occupation starts defining itself as the profession. Complex modern society achieves high degree of integration through identifying certain occupational functions with relevant professions, which in turn tend to protect their status quo by constructing barriers between other occupational and professional groups. The guards of these borderlines are professionals who defined for themselves and declared for the society criteria of the rightfulness of their activity. The stable state of professionalism could have been achieved gradually, only after the system for professional education, licensing, associations, journals, and the code of ethics were established. However, under the conditions of growing uncertainty this classic landscape of the fixed professional identities faced a new situation that was articulated by the critical approach and a concept of “reflexive practitioner” (Jones and Joss 1995).  These analytical perspectives draw attention to the features of rigidity and conservatism, practices of power and exclusion which come along with constituting of a profession. In this context, professionalization is a process of successful competition for symbolic and utilitarian resources among similar and overlapping occupations.
Social work as a new profession emerged in Russia only in 1991 and it still struggles for its definition and public recognition. The social construction of professional identity of social worker is created along with the process of professionalization which on the one hand is a positive force nurturing social integration and ensuring that a wide range of social needs is fully realized. On the other hand, because during the 70 years of Soviet era social protection was highly centralized and bureaucratized, sometimes today the organizational cultures of new social services reproduce soviet pattern of bureaucracy, the employees lack professional education, but at the same time they do not feel alienated from their clients. Many social work agencies must find new forms of organization and develop new philosophies of services, they are to build positive relations with NGOs and communities.
In Russia nowadays, we cannot expect social workers to become immediately what theorists would like them to be. It seems, however, that the most appropriate model of professionalism for social work practitioner in Russia  is one which emphasizes the importance of experiential learning as the means by which professional competence is acquired and refined. Jones and Joss argue that the model of reflective practitioner is “highly appropriate where questions of equity and non-oppressive and non-discriminatory behavior are paramount” (p.29). The reflective practitioner type of professionalism which proved to be more appropriate for today’s social work, involves combination of theoretical and practical knowledge, values, cognitive and behavioral competencies in specific contexts through negotiating shared meanings. The necessity of the partnership between education and practice as well as within different sectors of practical social work and other caring professions is being recognized.
In order to strengthen the capacity of these partnerships and training mechanisms it would helpful to expand information-sharing and networking activities, assist the development of non-governmental social services including direct services, advocacy groups and associations. The job market for social work graduates is quite large and diverse, educational programs have been established for students and practitioners working in public and non-agencies dealing with social services. But there is a growing need for the professional literature as well as for popularization of civil society and social work values by mass media.  An effective mechanism for independent evaluation of social services is needed to make it possible to provide targeted educational and fundraising activities. It is also important for the government, foundations and academic community to focus more resources and attention on the critical issue areas of social welfare and the importance of developing conflict resolution skills, to support the development of social services research.

References
Abercrombie, N. et al. (1984), Dictionary of Sociology. London: Penguin Books.
Ageev V.S. (1990) Vzaimootnosheniya grupp s neravnym sozial’nym statusom i psihologicheskie posledstviya nespravedlivosti (Relationship between the groups of unequal social status and psychological effects of injustice), In: Psihologicheskiy zhurnal (Psychological journal), Vol.11, N4 (12-19).
Belicheva, S.A. (1997), Psihosozial’naya rabota (Psychosocial work). In: Slovar’-Spravochnik po sozial’noy rabote (Dictionary of Social Work). Moscow: Yurist (269-271).
Durkheim, E. (1933) The Division of Labor in Society. 2d ed. New York:Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., Free Press Paperback.
Durkheim, E. (1957) Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Etzioni, A. (1964) Modern Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Freidson, E. (1970) Professional Dominance. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
Gouslyakova, L. (1998), Psihologiya i sozial’naya rabota (Psychology and social work), In: Holostova, E. (ed), Teoriya sozial’noy raboty (Theory of Social Work). Moscow: Yurist (119-146).
Greenwood, E. (1965) Attributes of a Profession. In: M.Zald (ed) Social Welfare Institutions. London: Wiley (509-523).
Holostova, E. (1998) (ed), Teoriya sozial’noy raboty (Theory of Social Work). Moscow: Yurist.
Jones, S., R. Joss (1995) Models of Professionalism, In: M.Yelloly and M.Henkel (Eds) Learning and Teaching in Social Work. London and Bristol, Pennsylvania: Jessica Kingsley Publishers (15-33)
Kharkhordin, O. (1997), Reveal and Dissimulate: A Genealogy of Private Life in Soviet Russia. In: Weintraub, J., Kumar, K. (Eds), Public and Private in Thought and Practice. Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press (365-363).
Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Larson, M.S. (1977) The Rise of Professionalism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Levtchenko, I. (1995), Put’ k sebe (The Way to Oneself). Social’naya zaschita. (Social Protection), N1 (81-84).
Millerson, G.L. (1964) The Qualifying Association. London: Routledge&Kegan Paul.
Mills, C.W. (1953) White Collar. New York: Oxford University Press.
Parsons, T. (1951) The Social System. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Poluektova, N.M., I.V.Yakovleva (1994), Problemy diagnostiki professional’nogo sootvetstviya sozial’noy rabote (Problems of Diagnostics of Professional Suitability to Social Work). In: Bulleten Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta (The Bulletin of Sanct-Petersburg State University), Serie 6, Issue 3 (47-58).
Reeser, L.C., I.Epstein (1996) Professionalization and Activism in Social Work: The Sixties, the Eighties, and the Future. New York: Columbia University Press.
Reutov, S.I., Z.P. Zamaraeva (1997), Podgotovka spezialistov dlya sozial’noi sfery v Permskoi oblasti: opyt, problemy, perspectivy (Training of Specialists for Social Sphere in Perm oblast). In: Zhukov, V.I. et al. (eds.), Sozial’naya rabota: opyt i problemy podgotovki spezialistov (Social Work: Experience and Problems of Training of Specialists). Moscow: Moscow State Social University (66-76).
Thompson, N. (1993) Anti-discriminatory Practice. Mscmillan: Basingstoke.
 
 

07.03.2002