Coping Processes in an Emerging Profession: Narratives of Social Workers in China

Abstract

Coping is a concern for both social work academics and practitioners, but its process has rarely been studied. This study investigated the coping processes utilized by social workers to remain in the profession in China. Forty-nine social workers were individually interviewed, followed by three focus groups convened to review the results. The findings showed that Chinese social workers presented an apparent coping habitus of reconciling structures and individual agency. “Outside-in” and “inside-out” processes were interconnected to elaborate their coping practices. Furthermore, the “inside-out” process was a strength-oriented coping practice and aimed to improve personal agency, and was treated as the primary coping process; while the “outside-in” process was a resource-based coping practice and regarded as a secondary solution to garner resources and support from external stakeholders. The implications for government, policy, research, social work practice, and education are discussed.

Plain Language Summary

Coping processes in an emerging profession: Narratives of social workers in China

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the coping processes utilized by social workers to remain in the profession in China. Methods: Forty-nine experienced Chinese social workers were individually interviewed, followed by three focus groups convened to review the results. NVivo software was used to assist thematic analysis. Conclusions: In China’s emerging social work context, social workers exhibited a clear coping habitus of reconciling structures with individual agency, where the “outside-in” and “inside-out” processes were interconnected to address challenges and sustain their profession. Strength-oriented coping practices, focused on enhancing personal agency and competence, were treated as the primary coping strategy, reflecting a tendency toward pragmatism rooted in professionalism. In contrast, resource-based coping practices, which sought resources and support from external stakeholders, were regarded as secondary solutions, highlighting an element of compromise in the coping process. Implications: First, Chinese governments should issue appropriate social work policies and regulations and re-construct fair cooperation relationships in social work fields. Second, social workers should understand the political system and power structure, and be engaged in the power structures and directly participate in the policymaking and policy practice to make their voice heard. Third, social work service organizations should invest in efforts to retain social workers in the profession. Limitations: Participants coming just three cities may have limited the diversity of coping practices. Licensed social workers without a social work diploma or worked outside social work services organizations were excluded. The study relied exclusively on qualitative data.

Introduction

The national licensure for social workers was introduced in mainland China (hereafter “China”) in 2008, after which social work became a new profession (Yan et al., 2013; Zhang, 2022). The emerging Chinese social work contexts have driven radical changes in policies, measures, and management, stimulating the rapid development of social work. The number of licensed social workers climbed from around 54,000 in 2012 to 931,000 in 2022, and this figure further grew to 1,161,000 in 2024; the count of social work service organizations (SWSO), one type of non-profit organization (NPO) and a primary workplace for social workers in China, showed a substantial growth from 600 in 2012 to over 15,000 in 2022 (Z. Liu, 2012; Ministry of Civil Affairs of China, 2022a, 2022b, 2023; Wu, 2024).

However, the emerging contexts have also brought constraints and challenges. Chinese social workers encounter numerous challenges arising from structural barriers, organizational constraints, and stressful daily practices, including constraining structural contexts, immature professionalization, low social recognition, insufficient competence, low autonomy, economic pressure, inadequate policy implementation, excessive workloads, and gaps in early social work education (An & Chapman, 2014; Bai, 2014; Guo, 2016; Jiang et al., 2019; Y. Xu et al., 2019; Zhang, 2022, 2023; R. Zhao et al., 2016). These challenges compel Chinese social workers to exert greater effort in finding solutions. As a result, retention in the profession has become fragile, and numerous social workers opt to transition into different professions after working in the profession for a few years (Wang et al., 2019; Yan et al., 2013). High turnover remains at around 20% (Jiang et al., 2019); turnover intention within the profession and to a different profession has reached 38.1% and 49.4%, respectively (D. W. Xu, 2017).

Despite constraints and challenges, some Chinese social workers have a long-term intention to remain in the profession. Previous studies have revealed that coping plays a crucial role in social worker retention, identifying a range of coping strategies, including structural, organizational, personal, and professional approaches, such as forming partnerships with government and other stakeholders, integrating resources, fostering supportive work relationships, practicing self-care, and enhancing work engagement (Mo, 2023; X. Yuan & Xu, 2016; Zhang, 2022, 2023). However, coping strategies that may be effective in one field may not work in others, and little literature has examined the specific coping processes that social workers use to successfully navigate challenges. While existing literature suggests that social workers’ coping is related to both internal capacities and external resources (Jiang et al., 2019; Wang & Chui, 2017; Zeng et al., 2016), there has been limited exploration of how they utilize these resources and capacities.

Meanwhile, The author has over 20 years of experience in social work practice, teaching, and research, having both experienced and witnessed the professionalization of social work in China. The author has been deeply engaged with Chinese social workers, collaborating on service design, delivery, and program and organizational management, while listening to their voices, understanding their struggles, and conducting multiple research projects on social workers’ professional challenges and career sustainability through the lens of the Theory of Practice (ToP). These personal experiences served as the driving force and rationale for conducting this study.

This study aimed to address this research gap by asking the primary research questions: What coping processes can be identified in Chinese social workers’ daily coping practices, and how are they utilized to achieve staff retention?

Literature Review

A History of Uneven Development: Social Work as a New Profession

Social work as a concept imported into China has experienced a fluctuating history, which can be conceptualized as occurring in four stages: (1) introduction (1920s–1949); (2) abolition (1949–1978); (3) reinstatement (1980s–2008); and (4) professionalization (2008 to the present). Uneven development has limited the accumulation of social workers’ coping practice.

Following the import of social work education in the introduction stage, it was subsequently eliminated following establishment of the Communist state because it was considered incompatible with Communist ideology and the vision of a socialist country. At the reinstatement stage, social work education was restored in universities in 1986 and then developed as an instrument and lubricant to ensure a harmonious society (Bai, 2014; Yan, 2017). Regional licensure of social workers was piloted in Shanghai as early as 2003. At the professionalization stage, the national licensure of social workers came into effect in 2008 (Guo, 2016); subsequently, social work has developed at a phenomenal speed to assist periodic social governance projects, but challenges have also emerged simultaneously.

Multi-dimensional Challenges in the Emerging Contexts

Chinese social workers face multi-dimensional challenges. A parallel study has identified structural barriers as two characteristics, the structural contexts are constraining, and the professionalization of social work is immature (Zhang, 2022). The literature also recognizes four constraints. The first is the limited application of policies. Despite their rapid development, social workers have encountered challenges in implementing appropriate social welfare policies to effectively assist their clients and in obtaining regular and consistent financial backing to sustain their programs (Li et al., 2022; Y. Yuan et al., 2021; Zhang, 2022). Second, it is anticipated that social workers should assist the government in maintaining social stability and assist social governance yet enjoy low autonomy and social status (Bai, 2014). Third, social workers face tensions between administrative and professional social work. Professional social work is still dominated by China’s administrative social work system and political structure, which embeds itself into professional fields and impedes the professionalization of social work (Yan, 2017; Yin et al., 2016). This scenario results in the lack of “stable professional position systems” and clear professional boundaries (Guo, 2016, p. 93; Niu & Haugen, 2019; Zhang & Li, 2023). The fourth issue is the inadequacy of early social work education. Due to the rapid development of the field and the high demand for social work faculty, only a small portion of the early faculty had a background in social work or social welfare education (Y. Xu et al., 2019). Few early social work faculty in China were fully qualified to teach, which led to many early social workers being inadequately trained at the beginning of their careers (Y. Liu et al., 2012; Xiong & Wang, 2007; Yan et al., 2013).

At the organizational level, China’s NPOs, especially SWSOs, face several constraints that extend to social workers working in them. The inequitable relationship between the government and NPOs and the distrust of the government, the vagueness of NPO’s roles, and the deficiency in professional management and the weak organizational competitive capacity have aggravated the pressure on social workers and their endeavors to cope (Guan, 2015; Zhang, 2022; R. Zhao et al., 2016).

At the personal practice level, Chinese social workers also encounter diverse challenges. A parallel study has disclosed four themes related to these challenges: excessive workloads, economic pressure, inadequate competence, and values and ethical dilemmas (Zhang, 2023). Other research has reported similar findings, including burnout, a fragile professional identity (Li et al., 2022; Niu & Haugen, 2019; Tang & Li, 2021), deficient skills and capacity, high workloads, low wages (An & Chapman, 2014), and a shortage of staff and high turnover intention (Jiang et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019). Obviously, personal challenges are impacted by both structural barriers and organizational constraints.

Multi-dimensional challenges mirror those reported globally (Geisler et al., 2019; Ravalier et al., 2021; Shier et al., 2021). Challenges have stimulated social workers to pursue and utilize coping strategies to achieve retention in their current social work positions; however, a reproducible coping process merits further exploration.

From Coping Strategies to Coping Process: Perspective Switch

Coping is considered a solution to help overcome challenges and enhance competence, well-being, strength, self-care, and resilience (Mo, 2023; Ravalier et al., 2021; Tesi et al., 2019). In the theory of practice, coping is related not only to structural factors but also personal agency or actions (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992).

There is a rich social work literature on coping among social workers reflecting structural and personal perspective initiatives. For example, three main strategies were identified to cope with structural barriers: establishing a partnership and resource integration, applying a professional and personal social support network, and promoting organizational governance and strategic management (Zhang, 2022, p. 383). Other research has investigated coping strategies, including seeking policy support and resources, contending with a rigid administrative system, supportive work relationships, self-care strategies, and work–life balance and a healthy work environment (Hombrados-Mendieta & Cosano-Rivas, 2013; Jiang et al., 2019; Mo, 2023; Yin et al., 2016; Zhang, 2023).

From the personal perspective, coping is related to intrinsic factors and personal agency, including a sense of mission in social work (An & Chapman, 2014), personal and professional hope (Collins, 2015; F. Zhao et al., 2017), professional competence (Wang & Chui, 2017; Zeng et al., 2016), resilience, well-being (Sánchez-Moreno et al., 2015), work engagement (Geisler et al., 2019; Ravalier, 2018; Tesi et al., 2019), and self-care (Mo, 2023; Zhang, 2023).

Nevertheless, questions remain unanswered. Social work practice spans various specific fields, with social workers encountering challenges at different levels and devising coping strategies to remain in the profession. Different coping strategies reported in the literature might serve one field or one kind of field but may not be effective for all (Ravalier et al., 2021; Zhang, 2022). From this perspective, it is necessary to move beyond a single perspective or specific field and adopt a multi-perspectives common approach when exploring coping strategies. This approach includes the internalized or embodied coping process, referred to as the coping “habitus” according to the theory of practice (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). This shift aims to identify whether any common coping processes emerge from social workers’ experiences (Tang & Li, 2021; Zhang & Li, 2023) and to understand how these coping processes help guide social workers in addressing challenges and continuing their careers.

The Theory of Practice and Habitus as a Theoretical Framework

This study primarily drew on the concept of habitus from the theory of practice (ToP) (Bourdieu, 1977, 1996; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) to analyze how coping processes are generated in the context of Chinese social work. To recap from ToP, coping involves solutions that relate to both individual actions and structural factors; individuals must find a balance between these to navigate real-life situations. The habitual ways and processes individuals use to address challenges are defined as coping processes. The study applied this theoretical framework into data analysis and discussion. Specifically, habitus is shaped in fields and refers to an embodied system of dispositions, including character and doxa. Doxa is the internalized, taken-for-granted, and unconscious beliefs and values that inform an individual’s actions and thoughts within a particular field. An individual’s practice is guided by habitus and involves “the internalization of externality, and the externalization of internality” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 172). Fields generate individuals’ positions and different forms of capital, among which symbolic capital is a crucial source of power and perceived through socially inculcated classificatory schemes, referring to resources based on honor or reputability, prestige, and respectability (Bourdieu, 1977, 1996). Therefore, by integrating these concepts into the data analysis and discussion, this study considered both structural and individual perspectives to understand coping as an interconnected process, elaborating on the internalization and externalization processes involved in the coping strategies employed by Chinese social workers. It considered what structures of fields they face and the ways these affect their coping practice. Thus, the study defined structures as “external social structures, social institutions, and the generalized features of social life,” and distinguished three aspects of structures: institutional (political, policy and regulation, government and organizational systems), social (education and social relations), and the public, excluding other broader issues, such as class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality (Zhang, 2022, p. 373).

Research Methods

Methods and Participants

The study gathered data through 49 in-depth interviews and 3 focus groups to address the research questions: What coping processes can be identified in Chinese social workers’ daily coping practices, and how are they utilized to achieve staff retention? Participant inclusion criteria included: (1) licensed social workers holding a social work diploma; (2) more than 5 years work experience in social work; (3) working in an SWSO or NPO for more than 1 year. Other licensed social workers, such as those working in the government sector or community neighborhood committees or without a social work diploma, were excluded because of differences in their roles—they undertook administrative duties primarily—and their inability to relate to a professional social work context.

The research sites were deliberately chosen to be three diverse Chinese cities: Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Xiamen. These cities were selected for their diversity, the availability of sufficient suitable participants, their representativeness of regions at different stages of social work development, and the ease of data collection and achieving data saturation in capturing experienced social workers’ coping strategies. Shenzhen is more progressive in terms of the development of social work. It adjoins Hong Kong and has developed widespread cooperation with SWSOs and universities in Hong Kong. In 2003, Shanghai led the way by being the first city to pilot professional social work and licensure of social worker in judicial services, a move that was ahead of the national licensure of social workers in 2008. While Xiamen’s social work development may not be as advanced as that of Shenzhen and Shanghai, its geographical proximity to Taiwan, with which it maintains ongoing contact, is noteworthy.

Various service organizations and categories of social workers in these three cities were represented in this study, including those serving older people, children, youth, family service, and community service fields. Gender and marital status were also duly considered. Apart from utilizing professional networks, the method of snowballing was also employed to enlist participants. First, eligible participants in the author’s professional networks were invited to participate via telephone, email or WeChat; at the same time, four participants were asked to serve as gatekeepers in Shenzhen and Shanghai to introduce eligible colleagues and friends based on their own networks, following which the author then invited these recommended participants. Finally, 49 participants were recruited.

Data Collection and Analysis, Ethical Considerations and Approval

The process of gathering data was divided into two phases: the first phase involved conducting in-depth interviews separately between 2018 and 2019, while the second phase consisted of three focus group discussions held in 2019. All interviews and focus groups were conducted in person by the author. Individual interviews took place in locations where participants felt safe and comfortable, such as offices, café, and meeting rooms within participants’ organizations. Interviews focused on participants’ experience of challenges and coping strategies utilized throughout their careers since tertiary education. Each interview was steered by a number of initial open-ended questions, such as What challenges do you face in your career, and what factors produced these challenges? How do you utilize coping strategies, and what factors impact your coping processes? although all participants were encouraged to tell a story about challenges and coping strategies in their careers. A total of forty-three participants were interviewed once, while six were interviewed twice due to the emergence of additional significant stories after their initial interview. Interviews lasted around 2 hr, and were audio-recorded and transcribed. Participants’ demographic information was collected during the first phase. After producing the preliminary findings, three focus groups were conducted in each city, held in meeting rooms of three participants’ organizations during the second phase. These focus groups were designed to present the findings, gather feedback, and identify new concepts or themes. The interviewed participants were invited to join in the focus groups in each city. The primary questions for these focus groups were, How far do you agree/disagree with the preliminary findings about coping processes? What new themes do you have? Focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed.

All participants were provided with the transcripts, preliminary findings, and theme analysis, and were invited to make corrections and provide feedback. This process was implemented to ensure the data’s validity, the reliability of the analytic process, and to achieve data triangulation.

Thematic analysis was used in this study. Due to the large amount of transcript data (over 1.6 million words), the author utilized NVivo 12 Plus software to help manage the initial and secondary coding, as well as to aid in the identification of themes; however, the author manually coded all transcripts in NVivo. Thematic analysis followed the conventional process proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006): (1) combining participants’ narratives in focus group into their interviews accordingly, and importing all transcripts in NVivo based on sequential codes in participants’ interviews; (2) the author manually coded the data in Chinese, which resulted in over 150 initial nodes related to challenges, barriers, and coping strategies or solutions; (3) the nodes were then adjusted and merged into codes according to the theoretical framework of ToP, including two codes relating to structural barriers and three categories of coping strategies, “building partnerships and integrating resources,”“utilizing a professional and personal social support network” and “improving organizational governance and strategic management” (Zhang, 2022), and four codes relating to personal challenges and two categories of self-care strategies, “personal self-care” and “professional self-care” (Zhang, 2023). Based on these processes, the study ultimately identified two primary themes, “inside-out” and “outside-in,” a thematic map was generated to expand social workers’ coping processes (see Appendix A). Participant feedback generated consensus for these themes; and (4) identifying and assigning names to the themes, and modifying these themes based on the feedback from participants. When writing this manuscript, codes and exemplar quotes were translated from Chinese into English by the author.

This research was conducted in accordance with four key ethical principles: obtaining informed consent, respecting individual autonomy, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and ensuring no harm is caused. The ethics committee for human subjects at the university associated with the author granted approval for the study.

Participants’ Demographic Information

The study included 15 participants from Shanghai, which were coded as SH01 to SH15, 16 from Shenzhen (SZ01 to SZ16), and 18 from Xiamen (XM01 to XM18). Of these, 8 were men and 41 were women. Thirty-one participants were married, while 18 were single. The participants had an average age of 32.7 years and had been working as social workers for an average of 8.6 years. Twenty-two of the participants held managerial positions in their organizations (OM), including roles such as director and deputy director, and all of them had prior experience as front-line social workers (FSW) and project officers or managers (PM). There were 25 participants who held project officers or management roles (PM) such as supervisor, project or departmental director, regional manager, or service center director, and all of them had prior experience as front-line social workers (FSW). Additionally, two of the participants were currently working as FSWs. As a result, the study gathered 49 narratives related to the front-line social worker stage, and 47 and 22 narratives related to the project officer or manager and the organizational management stages, respectively (Zhang, 2022).

Findings

Two processes were identified to explain the coping processes utilized by participants: “outside-in” and “inside-out.” As shown in Figure A1 under ToP’s framework, from the top-down direction, the “outside-in” refers to the internalization process, including the processes of “internalized.” Following the top-down direction from “coping habitus” and the bottom-up direction, the “inside-out” refers to the process of externalization, including the processes of “guide,”“reshape,” and “reproduce.” These two interconnected processes comprised participants’ coping habitus.

The Outside-In Process: “Internalized,” Disposition, and Doxa

The “outside-in” process began during participants’ early life and social work education experience and lasted into their current job. What they learned from the past, and externalities in social structures, were “internalized” or embodied as disposition or doxa of their coping habitus.

First, this process generated personal dispositions and doxa to become a social worker. The former came from participants’ life experiences, cultivating their dispositions to cope with challenges and interacting with people. The latter was rooted in their social work education and was internalized to become their belief in daily social work practice. Two aspects were core components of their coping habitus. Participant SH09 gave a typical example:

I always pour out my worries, or find a place to adjust myself from childhood … I always thought I was unable to cope with challenges by myself … but later my social work education changed me a lot … everyone is able to handle challenges. (SH09: 34-year-old female OM in Shanghai)

Second, this process strengthened their doxa through “learning-by-doing.” During their daily practice, participants continued learning from work experience to enhance their personal disposition and doxa of coping habitus, that is, what they learned from their work experience was continuously internalized as coping habitus. Moreover, what they learned at an earlier career stage was internalized as a stepping-stone to a subsequent career stage. The “learning-by-doing” approach could be considered one of best practices.

I learned a lot of service skills and acquired project management knowledge when I was a FSW and PM. These became my strengths and always help my current work as an OM. (SZ01: 34-year-old female OM in Shenzhen)

Internalization: What in Structures Were Internalized or Embodied and How?

Generally, participants were influenced by the advantages and challenges posed by social structures and the social work fields in China; they highlighted three major externalities in structures, as those were internalized. The internalization process was crucial for participants to achieve “learning by doing,” and was thus regarded as the foundation of their coping practice. The primary externality in structures was a series of new policies, regulations, and professional guidelines related to social work. For instance, Temporary Regulations on the Social Workers Vocational Standard Evaluation issued in 2006 and Regulation on Senior Social Workers Evaluation issued in 2018. Participants actively studied these, enabling them to understand and internalize the implications in their coping habitus, as indicated by participant SH01:

I always actively study new policies and regulations, so I am aware of trends in social work development … since services delivery has strong ties with them in China. (SH01: 32-year-old male OM in Shanghai)

The second externality in structures was social relations in different sub-fields, comprising organizational management and peer relationships in the NPO field, interactions with government in the power field, and cooperation with other stakeholders in broad fields. Intra- and inter-organizational relationship-building patterns were simultaneously internalized. Finally, active or passive disposition or doxa of coping habitus were formed to maintain appropriate relationships with different stakeholders, such as actively engaging in alliances in the NPO field, and passively compromising or yielding to government and commercial sectors to obtain resources and funding in the power fields. Participant SZ02 portrayed a common scenario:

Sometimes, we were required to take on extra work for government sectors, I tried to refuse … but I learned this would result in an intensive relationship … So, I had to reconsider a more suitable way. (SZ02: 30-year-old female PM in Shenzhen)

So, participants utilized both active and passive initiatives during the first and second internalization processes of externalities. They actively learned from policies and regulations, and followed conventional instructions to build relationships with the dominant government and stakeholders. Meanwhile, they had to yield to negative factors in the power fields, such as the political structure and competitive commercial culture, to adapt to the unequal relationships.

The third externality in structures was life and social work education experience. Most notably, participants’ experiences from childhood to the present were continuously internalized as their dispositions and doxa in social work practice; for example collectivistic activities, practicum and courses in social work professional education, and behavioral tendencies when encountering difficulties, as noted by participant SZ02:

In my childhood, I talked to my sister about my negative emotions, but she pushed me away … so I learned from then to solve problems alone. (SZ02: 30-year-old female PM in Shenzhen)

The Inside-Out Process: “Guide,”“Reshape,” and “Reproduce”

As Figure A1 shows, the “inside-out” process refers to participants’ coping practice was unconsciously guided by the embodied coping habitus, that is, the externalization of internalities. Moreover, participants’ coping practice could reproduce or restructure social work fields or sub-fields, and structures they were engaged with, and coping habitus was continuously reshaped in these structuring fields or structures.

First, participants utilized coping habitus to guide their coping practice. When they encountered challenges, they would unconsciously access and utilize habitus that were internalized and formed in the outside-in process to guide their daily coping practice. This unconscious practice is regarded as a crucial aspect of the externalization process in coping practice. Notably, capacities or agency including learning ability, adapting ability, and communication skills were highlighted as internalities of coping habitus at the three stages. However, participants specified differences in internalized agency at each stage. In the FSW stage, social work service skills and professional values and ethics were most prominent. In the PM stage, project management, leadership or team building capacity, and research and development ability were most apparent. In the OM stage, social work supervision capacity, organizational management and leadership, and research and development ability were most salient. Apparently, their coping habitus was increasingly shaped in different career sub-fields. Moreover, internalized agency and coping habitus fundamentally assisted them to gain and activate different forms of capital and resources, such as reliable cooperation with sponsors, supportive supervisors and colleagues, and sustainable volunteers; these resources, capital and habitus contributed to participants’ coping practice in fields.

When I became more experienced, my abilities improved, and I was able to draw on more external resources and handle complicated relationships to finally benefit my daily practice. (XM05: 34-year-old female OM in Xiamen)

Second, participants’ coping habitus was unceasingly reshaped in social work fields during their coping practice, in which they reproduced the social work fields in which they were engaged in. On the one hand, participants emphasized “learning-by-doing” to improve agency, playing an agentic role in building a cross-over between the “outside-in” and the “inside-out” coping processes and demonstrating and reshaping their coping habitus throughout the three stages:

I always relied on myself when facing challenges … since I believe in my own abilities … Later, I also found social work experts, external resources or social relations, and policy supported me a lot. These two ways reshaped my former coping habit. (SH04: 29-year-old female PM in Shanghai)

On the other hand, participants could reconstruct the social work fields where they practiced. During their daily practice, the attitudes and recognition of government officials and other stakeholders toward social workers, the associated professionalism of social work, and the power relations in social work changed for the better. This enabled participants to rebuild different fields and sub-fields:

When the government saw our professionalism, they changed a lot and actively cooperated with us. Now, we always play a leading role in designing and conducting activities. (XM05: 34-year-old female OM in Xiamen)

Third, participants tried to reproduce social structures on their symbolic capital. They specified these as participating in policy practice that relied on their excellent reputation through well-known programs or service performance, as mentioned by participant SZ05:

This year, we were invited by the Civil Affairs Bureau to participate in drafting policy for severe illness because we edited a practical manual for severe illness support last year. Finally, we made a series of suggestions to simplify the complicated application process. (SZ05: 33-year-old female FM in Shenzhen)

Another approach was direct participation in policy-making when they were appointed as political positions, such as a representative of the Communist Party of China, and a deputy of the People’s Congress at national, municipal, and district levels. These appointments, as their crucial symbolic capital, generated previously unachievable opportunities to directly contribute to policy development, and cooperative relationships with government sectors.

Externalization: What Dispositions and Doxa Were Externalized?

In brief, participants underlined three types of dispositions and doxa of coping habitus that were externalized to guide their coping practice. The first was the internalized personal disposition of behaviors when encountering difficulties and interacting with people. Previously, participants SH09, SZ02 gave different narratives.

The second consisted of professional capacities and agency embodied during participants’ social work education and work experience, including social work knowledge and skills, values, and ethics. Participant SH03 gave a typical narrative:

As a social worker, sustainable empowerment originally came from what I learned in my university social work education. Social work mission, values, and skills are always helpful to me. (SH03: 32-year-old female OM in Shanghai)

Participant SH14 also made a self-disclosure:

I have expertly applied social work skills, such as self-determination and empathy to serve clients. Now I always use them to serve myself. (SH14: 46-year-old female OM in Shanghai)

The third comprised the doxa in policies and power relations in social work fields, deconstructed as participants’ understanding of the content and implications, strong belief in the importance of the applications, and preferring to maintain effective relationships with stakeholders, especially the government. As indicated by participant SH01:

I realized the government language is quite different from social work … I always apply what I have learned from interactions with government officers to guide my current actions. (SH01: 32-year-old male OM in Shanghai)

Preference for Coping Habitus: Strength-Oriented

Similar to the public, some participants stated that they initially trusted external stakeholders to access resources or support through the “outside-in” process when facing challenges, since this resource-based coping practice would be feasible and effective in solving the problems at hand:

I would like to pour out my stress to someone, such as supervisors and friends. I might use both formal and informal ways to cope with challenges. So, I prefer to solve problems quickly through seeking external assistance or resources. (XM03: 28-year-old female PM in Xiamen)

Rather than approaching external stakeholders for solutions, most participants preferred employing the “inside-out” process to activate their own internalities, that is, habitus, to cope with work-related challenges. Participants showed an apparent strength-oriented coping habitus because of the embodied dispositions and doxa.

I will calm down first and prefer dealing with challenges by myself … As a social worker, I believe that I possess the basic abilities to deal with my own challenges … and these abilities would eventually empower me to sustain an approach to problem solving. (SH01: 32-year-old male OM in Shanghai)

Notably, participants disclosed that, as social workers, they would help people to solve problems and empower them to understand themselves and to develop their own solutions. Thus, participants demonstrated this habitus as a professional qualification or doxa and transferred it to clients:

When we deliver services, only our successful performance and demonstrating our ability to solve problems qualify us as enablers. (XM08: 30-year-old female OM in Xiamen)

Thus, during coping practice, participants clearly preferred to utilize their embodied dispositions and doxa, highlighting the inside-out process as a primary strength-oriented approach. In comparison, they viewed the outside-in process as a secondary, resource-based method. Moreover, this internalized coping habitus comprised professional competence, which they demonstrated to serve clients better during their daily practice.

Discussion and Conclusion

Mission, Values, and Agency Embodied as Sustainable Empowerment

Even though a social work professional value system has not yet been established (F. Zhao et al., 2017), and professional competence is still developing in China (Zeng et al., 2016), the study indicates that the social work mission, values, and agency gained from professional education and daily practice were embodied as part of participants’ coping habitus to generate enthusiasm, commitment, and inspiration and guide their coping practice in social work fields. These findings are consistent with literature. For example, Y. Liu et al. (2012) assert that social workers “had been taught that some key social work values were core elements of their social work professional identity” (p. 189), upon which they have constructed coping practice. Yan et al. (2013) state that these social work values and knowledge “… as a form of personal knowledge, indeed not only became their primary source of reference to understand the field but also sustained their involvement during the transition process” (p. 544).

Social Workers as Active Agents

Study participants were active rather than passive, utilizing agency and capital to cope with challenges. Despite the absence of adequate social work education and mature professional contexts (Zhang, 2022), participants did not immerse themselves in complaints about the emerging contexts. Instead, they learned to benefit from elements of structures and personal and professional experience to survive challenges (Kwan & Reupert, 2019). As Collins (2008) states, social workers opened up “flexible possibilities for developing new ones [coping skills]” (p. 1179). The “internalization of difficulties” contributed to forming their coping habitus, since participants applied the professional methods and perspectives of social work to help people, in turn applying these to “their own coping skills” (p. 1178). Therefore, participants demonstrated active agency in forming their coping habitus. The study findings supplement the coping literature with new evidence about Chinese social workers’ efforts to enhance their agency and competence.

Notably, Bourdieu (1977, 1996) asserts that actors’ practice is unconsciously guided by the internalized habitus; agents’ subjectivity and ability are weak. Nevertheless, the findings critique this argument and affirm that participants as social workers are active agents, demonstrating professional roles as positive learners and change-makers; their coping habitus indicated a more conscious and subjective pattern and process than Bourdieu’s (1996) argument about habitus, regarded “as principles [that] … can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them” (p. 108).

Chinese Stories of Coping Habitus

In terms of coping habitus, according to Bourdieu’s ToP (1977, 1996), the findings highlight two internalized dispositions and doxa that were applied to guide coping practice. First, professional capacities and agency were embodied as participants’ professional belief in utilizing appropriate methods and skill to serve clients and themselves when encountering challenges. Evidence from Chinese social workers suggests that professional experience and competence are crucial contributors to the formation of coping habitus. In other words, professionalism and competence are key elements in the coping process, reflecting a clear tendency toward pragmatism (Lei & Huang, 2017; Wang & Chui, 2017). Meanwhile, these internalized doxa could be transformed from the FSW stage to the PM or OM stages as stepping-stones to guide their coping practice during long-term retention in the profession. This echoes Bourdieu’s (1996) points about habitus as “systems of durable, transposable dispositions” (p. 127). Second, the doxa in policies and power relations indicates congruence with distinct aspects of China’s political system and the power field with government, “characterized by centralism, hierarchy, bureaucracy and top-down management” (Zhang, 2022, p. 373). Participants were acutely aware of the importance, implications, and applications and place a high premium on maintaining effective relationships with the dominant government. Awareness, belief and actions were internalized as one decisive doxa of their coping habitus. In daily practice, they conceded a certain amount of authority and power to the government within the social work field in exchange for professional development space and autonomy, reinforcing arguments found in the literature (Jiang et al., 2019; Zhang, 2021). This enabled them to gain fundamental initiative in developing strategies to cope with challenges arising from structural levels, reflecting a clear element of compromise grounded in pragmatism (Lei & Huang, 2017).

Strength-Oriented and Resource-Based Coping Practice

To conceptualize the “inside-out” and “outside-in” processes, the former is seen as strength-oriented and participants’ major coping habitus. Conversely, the latter is a resource-based and is an intermediate instrumental process, that is, the resource-based process serves the strength-oriented coping process. It seems there is a boundary between the internality and externality based on ToP (Bourdieu, 1977, 1996). However, the empirical evidence in this study showed that the two coping processes bridged this boundary and were interconnected to compose participants’ coping habitus.

From the agency perspective, participants employed the “outside-in” process to internalize the externalities as dispositions or doxa of their coping habitus. Whether the dispositions and doxa came from previous life experience, early social work education, or factors in social structures during uninterrupted work experience, all were constantly embodied. During this process, participants’ agency or competence and professional strengths improved. From the resource perspective, participants externalized the coping habitus, enabling them to cope with work challenges and seek external resources and cooperative relationships in social work fields. Conversely, the doxa in seeking resources and cooperation was ultimately embodied as one part of participants’ coping habitus to empower their coping practice. These two ways were interconnected. These findings reinforce arguments in the existing literature that habitus may be constantly reshaped in fields (Bourdieu, 1996), organizational atmosphere and adequate supervision are a specific field, and the dominant government as one vital stakeholder in the power field that also constructs social workers’ coping habitus (X. Yuan & Xu, 2016).

Conclusions

In China’s emerging social work context, social workers exhibited a clear coping habitus of reconciling structures with individual agency, where the “outside-in” and “inside-out” processes were interconnected to address challenges and sustain their profession. Strength-oriented coping practices, focused on enhancing personal agency and competence, were treated as the primary coping strategy, reflecting a tendency toward pragmatism rooted in professionalism. In contrast, resource-based coping practices, which sought resources and support from external stakeholders, were regarded as secondary solutions, highlighting an element of compromise in the coping process.

Implications

Implications for government and policy: The top-down political structures in China, along with the substantial impact of the government and political party, have played a pivotal role in shaping social workers’ coping habitus. The journey toward establishing social work professionalism within the evolving context of China is a lengthy process. Chinese central and local governments and political party are responsible for issuing appropriate social work policies and regulations and re-constructing fair cooperation relationships in social work fields, such as offering social workers and SWSOs regular annual financial support and enough professional space and authority, a decent salary, and stable positions. These will encourage the retention of social workers in the profession, create a stable social work workforce, and expand indigenous social work practices.

Implications for research: The general understanding of Chinese social workers’ coping process and its applicability could inform research on other practitioners such as nurses and psychologists. The findings also advance the key concepts of coping habitus through Chinese social workers’ stories. The findings have identified social workers’ ongoing coping practices. Future research could target social workers in one organization or city to provide deeper insights into coping stories through ethnography, probe career changes via a longitudinal study, or apply a quantitative study to interpret the linear correlations between coping process and related factors.

Implications for practice and education: Recently certified social workers in China and other developing nations should not only understand rules, power, norms and doxa in structures, especially the political system and power structure in social work fields, but also work in the profession for several years to improve their agency and capital, especially the symbolic capital, to gain sustainable coping practice experience. Second, as the expenses for certifying a social worker rise (Curtis et al., 2012), NPOs, especially SWSOs, should put resources into initiatives that encourage social workers to stay in the profession, for instance, offering good pay, sufficient organizational support, and adequate training or supervision. Third, social workers should be engaged in the power structures in social work fields and directly participate in the policymaking and policy practice to make voice heard, during this legitimation process, not only to promote social work policies and their own social recognition, but also to reproduce the structured power structures in social work fields (Tsang & Yan, 2001). Fourth, experienced social workers should produce practical knowledge in social work fields to improve their own symbolic capital through the institutionalized professionalism, and work with educators to contribute to the education of social work and the commitments to social justice and human rights.

Limitations

This study has several limitations. First, selecting participants from only three research cities may have limited the representativeness of social workers across China and the diversity of coping practices. Second, all participants in the study were social workers affiliated with NPOs who held a diploma in social work; those who were licensed social workers but lacked a diploma in social work or who were employed outside NPOs were not considered. Third, participants represented a range of social work specialties, which might have hindered a thorough exploration of the coping process in a particular field. Fourth, future studies might benefit from exploring variables such as age, experience, and gender. Finally, space constraints limit elaboration of the challenges and barriers facing participants.