Profiles of professional resistance in street-level bureaucracy programs. A quantitative-multidimensional typology

Summary Through a representative survey of front-line professionals from three social programs in Chile ( N = 1,694)—a country marker by the implementation neoliberal policies—we use latent class analysis (LCA) to build typologies of front-line professionals, according to the resistance actions that develop in their professional intervention practices. In this way, we explore the prevalence of each typology and the relationship between these typologies and sociodemographic and work characteristics. Findings The results show the existence of four typologies: (a) an adaptive focused professionals (38.3%), who mainly perform subtle and individual forms of resistance; (b) an organization focused professionals (21.6%) are professionals who frequently carried out resistance actions focused on the collective organization of demands; (c) multifocal resistant professionals (2.0%), who perform most of the resistance actions and; (d) complaint professionals (38.0%), who tend not to develop actions of professional resistance. Additionally, the analysis shows that the typologies vary according to gender, years of experience, place of work and the political institutional context of the intervention. Applications These results inform contemporary social work-practice in two ways. On the one hand, understanding the configurations, differences, and prevalences of professional resistance to front-line professionals (a very little explored field) and, on the other, helping to comprehend the relationship between professional resistance, sociodemographic characteristics, and working conditions. Both axes constitute central aspects of insight the implementation of social intervention, with important consequences for the development of contemporary social policies.