Turkish and Moroccan Dutch professionals in social work

Abstract

This article describes the perspective of newly started female Turkish and Moroccan Dutch professionals in social work and explores how they connect to the social work profession. Social work in the Netherlands attracts many of these young ‘new’ professionals. These second-generation women from a Muslim background are considered a ‘progressive force’ within their communities and can play an important role in ‘remaking the mainstream’. Increasing diversity and complexity go hand in hand with high expectations and claims. Muslim, gender, ethnic and professional identities have to be combined and demand high flexibility in doing boundary work.

Dit artikel beschrijft het perspectief van beginnende Turkse en Marokkaanse vrouwelijke professionals in het maatschappelijk werk en onderzoekt hoe zij zich verbinden met het beroep maatschappelijk werk. In Nederland, kiest een groot aantal van deze jonge, nieuwe professionals voor het maatschappelijk werk. Deze tweede generatie vrouwen met een islamitische achtergrond, kunnen binnen de gemeenschap beschouwd worden als een ‘een progressieve kracht’ en spelen een belangrijke rol in het doorbreken van de dominante beeldvorming t.a.v. migranten. De toenemende diversiteit en complexiteit gaan gepaard met hoge verwachtingen en claims. Moslim-, gender-, etnische en professionele identiteiten moeten worden gecombineerd en vereisen een hoge mate van flexibiliteit in het verrichten van ‘boundary work’.

Keywords:

• super-diversity
• complexity
• boundaries
• Islam
• social work identity

Kernwoorden:

• super-diversiteit
• complexiteit
• ‘boundaries’
• Islam
• en sociaal werk identiteit

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the social workers who participated in this study by agreeing to be interviewed and to the social work organisations for offering access to their internal networks in recruiting participants for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Peter Hendriks is senior lecturer and researcher at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (HU), with special interest in international and intercultural social work. Since 2007 he is a member of the executive committee of the European Association of Schools of Social Work (EASSW). His (Ph.D.) research is on Turkish and Moroccan Dutch professionals in social work.

Lia van Doorn worked as a researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Utrecht University (UU), before joining the Netherlands Institute for Care and Welfare (the current MOVISIE) as researcher and project leader. In 2002 she completed her postgraduate research at the UU with the dissertation Een tijd op straat. Een volgstudie naar (ex-)daklozen in Utrecht (1993–2000) at University Utrecht. Currently she is head of the research group Social Work at the Research Centre for Social Innovation of the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (HU).

Hans (J. P.) van Ewijk is visiting professor at Tartu University and professor emeritus ‘Social policy and social work theory’ at University for Humanistic Studies and Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. He is past President of ICSW Europe and first chairman of ENSACT. He started his career as Youth Worker, became director of the National Institute for Care and Welfare and finished his career as Professor in social work.