This chapter begins the theory of pride and shame in professional practice by considering their role in creating, maintaining and disrupting practices that have resulted in what we know today as child and family social work. As people sought to develop ways of addressing social issues related to children and families, different discourses on children, families and social issues provided competing and conflicting messages about what was praiseworthy and shameful behaviour. Different representations of social work practice can, therefore, be seen to have been constructed within these competing discourses. This chapter outlines these representations as social administration, social policing, activism, therapy and practical help, demonstrating how pride and shame were central components in how these practices were institutionalised. Contemporary child and family social work, however, needs to be seen within the context of neoliberalism, which has disrupted and discredited certain institutional arrangements and constructed and consolidated others. This has shifted the systemic boundaries for praiseworthy and shameful behaviour, and has, therefore, influenced, interrupted and adapted established organisational and professional arrangements. This chapter analyses these developments to provide an overview of the current reconfiguration of professional practice and the place of pride and shame within this.

Theorising pride and shame in the professionalisation of child and family social work

There are many ways in which a particular occupational group can organise their work. Throughout the 1800s, however, a new form of organising work emerged that enabled an occupational group to dominate a particular division of labour and control what they did and how they did it (Freidson, 1970; Larson, 1977). This idea of a ‘profession’ can be considered a social representation (Moscovici, 1961), with core elements being professional knowledge, expertise, autonomy and a commitment to public service (see Friedland and Alford, 1991). Freidson (1970) argues that the process through which an occupational group is able to fulfil this professional ideal rests, initially, on a privileging by the power of the state. Gaining legitimacy for a particular domain and social acceptance among those with power is, therefore, a necessary first step. Freidson (1970) argues that this is achieved by developing a cognitive basis, made up of a body of knowledge and techniques that professionals apply in their work, and a normative basis, consisting of a service orientation and set of ethics for the occupation.