How professional is the BSW worker

Preston M. Dyer, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Director of the Social Work Program, Baylor University, Waco, Texas. A version of this paper was presented at the State Convention of the Texas Chapter of NASW, September 1976, in Houston, Texas. The research presented in this article is based on the author's doctoral dis sertation, Texas Woman's University, Denton, 1976. The status of a profession affects the the status of the profession. Opposing prestige and rewards of its members, this view are the agencies that em Social workers were shocked in 1915 ploy the workers. These agencies are when Flexner declared that social work generally organized around bureau was not yet a profession because it cratic principles that emphasize effi lacked a systematized body of knowlciency. "Good" employees are those edge.1 Greenwood, speaking from a who can accomplish the functions of sociologist's point of view, reassured the agency in the most efficient way. social work practitioners in 1957 In the author's experience, some when, using criteria he had developed agency administrators have questioned for measuring the attributes of a prowhether there are any differences be fession, he declared that social work tween BSW workers and agency was indeed a professional field.2 Since trained workers when judged on the that time, most social work students basis of efficiency in the delivery of have read Greenwood's article as part services. of their professional training and have If BSW workers are to establish used it as a rebuttal against those who their claim to the first level of profes suggest that social work is not a fullsional social work practice, they must fledged profession. demonstrate their ability to work According to Wilensky's study of within the normative expectations of the professionalization process, profesthe profession in terms of knowledge, sions tend to increase educational and skill, and attitudinal qualities. More training requirements as they become over, if workers at this level are to more professionalized.3 In 1969, howachieve the goal of increasing the pro ever, social work took a step that was fessionalization of public welfare per contrary to this tendency and which, sonnel, they must be able to find in the minds of some, threatened the employment in agencies. More specifi status of the profession. In that year cally, they must show that they are of the members of the National Associamore value to the agencies than tion of Social Workers (NASW) voted agency-trained workers, to admit social workers with bachelor's It is generally assumed that profes degrees from approved social work sional training at the university level education programs to full memberprovides consistently superior levels of ship in the professional organization, knowledge and skill. Such training also This status had formerly been reserved socializes the individual to the profes for practitioners with at least a master's sional form of work organization. In degree in social work (MSW). the agency, such academic knowledge This action in effect established the and skill may be highly appreciated; bachelor's degree in social work however, workers with the BSW de (BSW) as the educational requirement gree will also be confronted with a for the first level of professional social new set of normative expectations work practice. Although on the surface growing out of the bureaucratic form this might appear to be a lowering of of work organization. The problem professional standards, it may actually for such workers, then, is clearly to be a realistic reorganization of professubstantiate their claim as profession sional training methods in recognition als while at the same time achieving of the varied uses of social work perthe organizational goal of efficiency, sonnel. In short, does the BSW social worker Holders of the BSW degree find have fluidities that warrant both pro themselves being pressed on two sides fessional and organizational recogni to establish their legitimacy as profesti°n? sionals. On one side stands the pro fession itself. Many practitioners ques tion the professional status of BSW workers and view the extension of Two methods have been used by stu such status to anyone with less than dents of the sociology of occupations a master's degree as retarding the proand professions to study the degree of fessionalization process and lowering professionalization of work groups.