DRAGGED TO MARKET - BEING A PROFESSION IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD

Under a regime of quasi-markets, UK public sector occupations are havi ng to promote themselves as enterprising and argue their case for a sh are of public spending. Much of this rakes place through the news medi a. In order to do this effectively, some kind of professional grouping is essential. The paper reviews the failure of non-probation social w ork to achieve a professional formation thus far. Rejecting explanatio ns rooted in attitudes, values and gender, it argues that the core pro blem since the early 1970s has been the shifting nature of social serv ices work because of central government policy changes. Now that the p rofile of social services tasks is more settled, it is time for social workers to abandon their reluctance to claim distinctive expertise an d set about developing a more confident set of intellectual skills and thus an effective voice. In a postmodern age of sceptical consumers t hey need not fear elitism as they will, rather, be judged by their eff ectiveness.