Influence of the imagined community on the ‘correctness’ of social work in social-legal protection of children in the Czechia

ABSTRACT

The imagined community of social workers provides a collective resemblance to the individual construction of the correctness of performance of social work. This paper aims to understand the influence of the imagined community and its shared social worker’s metanarrative on the ‘correctness’ of social work in social and legal protection of children in Czechia. The data were created through a qualitative research strategy, more specifically through sets of three repeated interviews with eight well-experienced social workers from the office of social and legal protection of children. The data were analyzed using the constructivist grounded theory by Charmaz. The research conceived six roles of the imagined community that fulfill specific functions, plus two functions for which the informants did not create any specific roles of imagined community; making these functions in the informants’ view unfulfilled. Specifically, this concerned self-organizing capacity as well as activation and protection of a social worker. The generated data are further discussed in the context of education and training designed for social workers.

KEYWORDS:

• Imagined community
• social work
• metanarrative of good social worker
• correctness of social work performance
• social and legal protection of children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Informant (communication partner) and his/her number

Additional information

Funding

This work was not supported by any grant.

Notes on contributors

Kateřina Glumbíková

Mgr. et Mgr. Kateřina Glumbíková, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Studies, University of Ostrava. Her research is focused on the issue of reflexivity in social work with vulnerable children and their families. Their research interests also include evaluation of social housing and homelessness of mothers and women without a shelter.

Marie Špiláčková

Doc. Marie Špiláčková, Ph.D. is an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Studies of the University of Ostrava. Her area of interest is history of social work and participatory planning in urban space.

Marek Mikulec

Mgr. Marek Mikulec, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Studies of the University of Ostrava. In his dissertation he dealt with the topic of social exclusion. He is currently studing the topic of housing exclusion and social housing.