Whilst a main task of social work education is to develop the student's professional identity, the literature on social workers’ identity formation is limited. Drawing on twenty-one reflective written assignments, this qualitative study examined defining moments as perceived by third-year Israeli social work students—moments seen as most influential in their process of professional identity formation. The crafting of a social worker identity was found to be an ongoing and spiral process, unfolding across three main spheres: (1) coping with challenges as an opportunity for development; (2) sparkling experiences validating the emerging professional identity; and (3) intersections of personal and professional identities. The findings suggested that through a process of guided reflection and discussion, often facilitated in supervisory sessions and classroom settings, students were able to transform their experiences into cornerstones for structuring their emerging professional identity. These dynamics underscore the significance of directly incorporating professional identity exploration as an integral part of the social work curriculum.

中文翻译：

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我成为社会工作者的旅程：职业身份形成的决定性时刻

虽然社会工作教育的主要任务是培养学生的职业认同，但有关社会工作者身份形成的文献却很有限。这项定性研究借鉴了二十一项反思性书面作业，考察了以色列社会工作三年级学生所感知的决定性时刻——被视为对他们职业身份形成过程最有影响力的时刻。人们发现社会工作者身份的塑造是一个持续的、螺旋式的过程，在三个主要领域展开：（1）应对挑战作为发展的机遇；(2) 验证新兴职业身份的辉煌经历；(3) 个人身份和职业身份的交叉点。研究结果表明，通过指导性反思和讨论的过程（通常在督导会议和课堂环境中进行），学生能够将他们的经验转化为构建他们新兴职业身份的基石。这些动态强调了将专业身份探索直接纳入社会工作课程不可或缺的一部分的重要性。