Abstract: As a new profession, fast-developing social work plays an increasingly important role in social governance. However, neither social status identification of social workers nor stability of social work talents team sees optimistic. Based on professionalism, this article investigates the subjective social status identification of 84 social workers in Nanjing to discuss how the identification of the new professional group is influenced by professionalism. It can be found that professionalism in three dimensions is weak in practice, including professional cultural signals, professional knowledge system and professional access threshold of social work and social workers. Besides, the professional status of social work affects practitioners’ senses of professional value, achievement and social recognition, thus influencing their identification. In essence, social workers’ subjective social status identification is the embodiment of industrial and individual professionalism. Compared with traditional social and economic resource determinism, the professional logic mechanism of their identification highlights the social and cultural connotation of professionalism as a characteristic and relationship. To make the best of social work talents in social governance, the professionalism of social work needs strengthening by integrating professional cultural symbols, constructing a professional knowledge system and setting a strict professional threshold. Therefore, the social status recognition and stability of social workers can be improved.

Key words: social work, subjective social status identification, professionalism, social recognition, self-actualization