Norms, Social Roles, Culture, Conflict and Social Work

Abstract

This work analyses the field of social action connected to Social Work on the basis of the normative dimension that disciplines the social positions connected to it, highlighting the conflictual dimension inherent to the particular internal specialist culture that distinguishes the social workers in the sector. When analysing the social and professional positions connected to the field of social action definable as Social Work, it must be underlined that the social workers who act within it or who come into contact with it, do not appear only as psycho-physical entities, but also and above all as bearers of social roles and statuses, point of destination and origin of models, expectations of social action, interests and purposes, in the light of an internal specialist culture that if it does not unite, then from a conflictualist perspective it can divide. In this perspective, the communicative activity of social workers appears to be aimed at controlling the antagonist by tracing the limit between the sphere of action, their own competence and that of others, becoming the communicative system in its correlation with the conflict or social negotiation that always accompanies it a terrain of comparison and/or clash. A sort of arena in which “a game” is played, the stakes of which are the acquisition of resources for which one conflicts or negotiates: the social relationship of power is above all communicative and often resolves itself in a choice and opposition of signs and symbols between the interacting social workers.