Starting from the perspective of the new social studies of childhood and their strong focus on agency of children this article follows the critical voices on the agency concept and reconceptualises children’s autonomy under conditions of vulnerability. Within the adult dominated field of sport the phenomenon of children’s vulnerability as well as children’s autonomy can be seen and discussed empirically. The authors analyse what and how children’s autonomy is enabled or limited e.g. through organisational aspects or through the superior position of adults. This leads to new findings concerning children’s emotional and physical vulnerability, children’s decisions about leisure time and adult-free spaces as well as the limitation of children’s autonomy. As a conclusion or in the sense of an outlook, thoughts towards theories of professionalism are considered.

The article gives a critical view on the situation of unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers in Switzerland. Available data on the situation of “unaccompanied minors” (UAM) in Switzerland are presented and discussed. Further the Swiss Legal framework and policy as well as the impact of the The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is critically reviewed due to their situation. The article shows current proceedings but it shows also that UAMs’ rights and needs in Switzerland are not (yet) met by the process steps between the border and appropriate accommodation, or by the understanding and coordination between asylum policy and child and youth care.

This article adopts the hypothesis that the primary organizational structures of the family and immediate social environment play a decisive role in explaining the genesis of racist attitudes and behavioral disposition. Processes of upbringing and socialization are always to be un-derstood as products of active subjective interaction and thus to be reconstructed as such within the framework of social work research. In the context of the research this article is based on, it was of special interest to scrutinize the biographies of young people by analyzing junctions and relevant turning points on their pathways to right-wing extremism. This bio-graphical junctions and turning points are seen as timeframes where agency and biographical meaning gets evident and can be re-constructed. This method is supported by more recent findings which unanimously warn against relying on the results of socialization while neglecting that the acquisition of social disposition is a process which is highly individual in characteristic. To make the model of junctions and turning points understandable, the second half of this article discusses a generic case of a young man and his subjectively relevant meanings of becoming and being right-wing extremist.

This reflection report provides insights into a multi-year Swiss-Russian development cooperation involving two schools of social work. Cooperation was aimed at developing a methods handbook for social workers in the penal system of the Russian Federation. The report discusses the challenges posed by such international cooperation projects and the various factors contributing to successful cooperation.

How is a profession distinguished from a non-profession? In what ways is the boundary between profession and non-profession marked, transformed, and dealt with? And how is social work professionalized in these processes of boundary-setting and boundary transfor-mation? In the perspective of Social Work as Working at the Border I address professionaliza-tion, as well as professionalism as boundary-work, boundary-setting and boundary-crossing. This aspect of boundary transformation is discussed in terms of the theory of profession: how does the process of professionalization occur? What is the connection between professionalization, science, politics and the social question? With reference to these questions, a boundary-analytic perspective is outlined in order to review the emergence and development of social work as a profession, and professional ways of handling social inequalities: how is the boundary between profession and non-profession set, secured and transformed? How could this boundary be crossed in processes of professionalization? In the concluding remarks the issue of professionalization as a process will be reversed into the question of professionalism as a mode of practice. Social work will thus be related to a notion of critique, and conceived of as professional boundary-work in the context of social inequality.