Shame and Pride among Social Workers in Israel: A Concept Map

The research on shame and pride among social workers is in its infancy. Given the potential consequences of these emotions on social workers and social work practice, this study had two main aims: (i) to identify practice situations in which social workers in Israel felt shame and pride and (ii) to classify and map these situations into conceptual domains. A concept mapping approach was used to achieve these aims. Eighty social workers recruited via social networks and snowballing participated in the statement generation of experiences of shame and pride in their daily practice. The sample was diverse in terms of seniority, role (managerial/frontline), populations served and agencies. The process yielded ten clusters, six of them representing sources of shame and four sources of pride. Based on the statements comprising the clusters, it can be argued that the ability of social workers to advance change can serve as an organising concept for comparing shame and pride. Not being able to promote desired change induces shame, while promoting such change fosters pride. These outcomes can be explained by self-discrepancy theory. The article discusses the implications of the study's results for theory, practice and research. Many of the situations yielded by the concept mapping procedure are consistent with those reported by previous researchers. This consistency suggests that the conditions reported are part and parcel of social work practice. The relative positions of the sources of shame in the map may stem from the workers’ internalisation of the abusive situations to which they are exposed: their poor work conditions, their inability to provide adequate services and the devaluation of them and their work. Separately and together, each of these situations may impact how social workers perceive themselves and their work. As for the pride clusters, the social workers depicted situations of success in achieving service users’ desired outcomes, their own ability to mobilise external resources to promote positive change and their being part of a force for change. Findings also show that the participants identified more with the statements representing pride than with those representing shame. The reasons may be that they experience more pride-inducing situations in their work, are less aware of shame-inducing situations, or are less prone to acknowledge such situations.