Professional Placement and Professional Recognition of Social Education Graduates in Spain: A 10‐year Balance

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect on the level of professional recognition of social educators and social care workers in Spain. Our findings are based on data and conclusions obtained from recent studies of professional placement among social educators. One of those studies contains research carried out with graduates in social education from the University of Girona (Spain). We present the most important data on the employability of social education graduates and provide information on the professional standing of social educators in Spain.

Keywords:

• Social Education Care Worker
• Employment
• Professional Placement
• Professional Recognition
• Higher Education

Notes

1. The University of Girona was created in 1991. It is located in the North East of Spain, in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia.

2. According to this document, applying this regulation may suppose the net generation of 263,057 full‐time jobs until 2010. The study refers to the different professions that could take part in the new system. Social educators would form part of the fourth group, which comprises the most specialised profiles, and also the fifth group, dedicated to the management and administration of centres and programmes (Vilà, 2006, p. 63).

3. It is not easy to establish specific differences in areas of social education, as its borders are not clear and there are overlaps. For the distribution of the cases in the different categories corresponding to the work areas we have respected the classification provided by the person who answered the questionnaire.

4. From our study, we have been able to verify that the work areas in which social educators mainly find work are those concerning children and young people, which account for 31% of those questioned, care of people with disabilities, which accounts for 22%, and primary care social services, which account for 17.6%.