Group portrait with ladies: in search of women’s careers in child welfare: Gender Campus

Group portrait with ladies: in search of women’s careers in child welfare, Switzerland, second 20th century

Abstract

This article focuses on female careers in French-speaking Switzerland in the field of child welfare, during the second half of the 20th century. Based on biographical interviews carried out with professionals who have been active in this field (social educators, social workers, juvenile judges, directors of homes), it questions their place in this field of intervention and the specificity women’s career paths compared to those of their male colleagues, by successively addressing several themes present in their testimony: social and family origin, training, positions held, reforms planned or accomplished, career developments and promotion. If common points with their male colleagues are observable, pointing to a progressive homogenization in their course of careers at the end of the 20th century, the article evokes some of the specificities which cross these female trajectories during the period considered: possibilities of promotion thanks to the opportunities offered by the private sector, role of women’s networks and inter-relations in the construction of careers, interest in the problems of female minors, personal and affective link with the publics under their care.