Una Ricerca Grounded Theory sul senso di appartenenza alla comunità professionale: la solitudine degli assistenti sociali

A Grounded Theory research about the sense of belonging to the professional community. The loneliness of social workersThis Ph.D thesis focuses on the theme of the sense of belonging of social workers to their professional community. We chose to use the methodology of Grounded Theory that, for premises, paradigms, characteristics, techniques adopted, seemed to respond to the need to investigate the topic starting from the point of view of colleagues. The embryonic “sensitizing concept” of the sense of belonging has gradually been defined in more precise research questions: What factors affect the sense of belonging to the professional community? What is the role of the professional Order? Following the Grounded Theory approach, the research is characterized by a spiral process that starts from the collection of data through individual interviews, processes two different levels of codification and analysis, then returns to the field through the focus group and, by a further level of codification, identifies in the loneliness of social workers the main core catogory. The comparison to the scientific literature has allowed to delimit the emerging theory, anchoring the loneliness of social workers to the paradox of the Public New Managment which describes characteristics and implications of the daily job of social workers. It is highlighted what has emerged in connection to the relationship between the professional community and the social workers Order and, finally, another possible investigation trail is showed.