I chose social (service) workers, because Social Worker is a protected title in many states in the US but there are many people who do not have their degree/licensure who engage in the same if not similar work so I wanted to capture that.

Gonna preface my ideas with the fact that I have a basic understanding of the classes so I could be off base and would love feedback/corrections if I’m not applying the terms correctly.

I think the kneejerk reaction from people when they hear that someone works in social services would be that they are petty bourgeois, but I believe that because the field is so broad, and there is so much overlap in work that it is both petty and proletarian. For example, licensed Social Workers can engage in private or group practice where they work for themselves. At the same time, they have the option of working in the public/private/nonprofit sector if they would like, doing the same type of work or different, where they sell their labor to their employer. They can also do both of these things at the same time, or do one and then the other as they choose to change jobs. There are also people who do not have these qualifications who do essentially the same work, but can ONLY sell their labor to their employer, and do not have the option of starting their own practice, therefore I would consider them specifically proletariat. Their wages are often very, very low, typically to the point of qualifying for different types of low income assistance programs.

I think this probably gets more complex, too, due to the fact that the work has been professionalized over time with the advent of the degree and the licensure requirements while non-professional workers are still widely used and exploited in tandem.

Or, would Social Workers and social service workers necessarily exist in different classes from one another due to the professionalization of one and not the other (in the eyes of the employer)?

So yeah I’d love to hear any thoughts on this