‘Doing something with society’: the emergent professional identity of sociology graduates

Many disciplines within social sciences and humanities (SSH) lack a direct connection between academic programs and specific professions, potentially complicating professional identity formation (PIF). Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 18 Dutch graduates, this study adopts a social constructivist perspective to explore how sociology graduates’ PIF emerged during the transition from university students to early-career employment outside academia. Although few identified as sociologists, most articulated a distinctive professional identity. By analyzing narratives concerning interactions, challenges, positioning, values, and self-distinction, we reconstructed key elements of their PIF processes. Upon entering programs, students were primarily driven by a desire to engage meaningfully with society yet demonstrated limited concern for specific occupational trajectories. Although they developed relevant competencies during their studies, many struggled to translate these into concrete professional roles, complicating their labor market transition. However, through early career experiences, graduates gradually came to recognize the value of their competencies and refined their professional self-understanding through internal-external dialectics relating themselves to their work and colleagues. Unlike graduates in fields such as medicine and education, whose professional identities are closely linked to specific occupations, sociology graduates constructed professional identities centered on who they sought to be in their work, often emphasizing societal impact and distinctive ways of thinking. Our findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of PIF in fields without clearly defined occupational trajectories, provide practical insights for SSH programs, inform curriculum development aimed at more intentional PIF, and extend conceptualizations of PIF by demonstrating how it can be examined from a social constructivist standpoint.