When Professional Identity Meets Praxis: A Qualitative Study of Child and Youth Care Students

Abstract

A critical issue in Child and Youth Care (CYC) education is the development of a professional CYC identity. Students are often caught between the potentially conflicting roles of fitting into a perceived CYC identity archetype and developing their personal approach to CYC praxis. This qualitative study examined the ways in which CYC students perceive and experience constructs of identity in the field of CYC as well as the ways that they respond internally to such constructs. The research design utilized creative modes of inquiry both in the processes by which the research was conducted and in the methods used to represent research data. The combination of traditional data collection strategies with arts-based presentation methods provided the participants a powerful learning experience by opening up a meaning-making space. This meaning making generated important insights into and understandings of the politics of identity in relation to the development