Craftsmanship spirit or professionalism: The impetus of barefoot social workers to complete their task identity for protecting disadvantaged children in China

Barefoot social workers that are engaged in child protection have been widely recognized, and the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs promoted them nationwide in 2019. Although several discussions have been held on the topic of rural child protection in China, little attention has been paid to barefoot social workers. Thus, we developed a “craftsmanship model”, based on a conceptual exploratory model of barefoot social workers’ task identity. Adopting data from a nationwide survey collected in China in 2018, we studied 756 barefoot social workers that were engaged in child protection. A two-step process analysis was employed. First, we built a structural equation model and examined the direct and indirect relationships between the social workers’ conscientiousness and professional competency and their task identity. Second, we tested moderating effects by using two multiple-group analyses of the workers’ working patterns and levels of training matching. Results confirmed the key role of conscientiousness, and only community work competency played a partial mediating role in the relationship between barefoot social workers’ conscientiousness and their task identity. Furthermore, working patterns and the levels of training matching acted as two moderators in the model. This study used a craftsmanship spirit model to increase the understanding of the relationships between barefoot social workers’ conscientiousness and competency and their task identity. The findings point to the need for further development of the workforce of barefoot social workers to serve as a national grassroots safety net for disadvantaged children and also call for combining workers’ craftsmanship and professionalism, developing greater case management competencies, and emphasizing values guidance and training matching.