Social agency and symbolic structure. The case of social work practice in Poland

Abstract

Changes in Poland, being a result of transformation of economic system open the necessity of formation new social policy and new social assistance system, including professional social work. Professional character of social workers job is being constructed not only by law or institutional regulations, but through everyday activities undertaken by social workers. One of the consequences of these practices is the strategy of informal evaluation and classification of welfare clients. To understand the social workers daily professional practice is important to identify strategies, arguments and language codes lying behind them. We try to interpret this kind of social workers’ activity refer to different theoretical perspectives.