Reflective practice in context: An exploration of the conditions of professional reflective practice in Danish welfare-to-work organizations

This article summarizes key findings from the author’s 2022 Ph.D. dissertation on the conditions of professional reflective practices within Danish welfare-to-work organizations. It addresses dilemmas and wicked problems, focusing on organizational conditions influencing reflexivity. Ethnographic field work yielded three crucial findings. Firstly, it shows how the pace of the organization influences the conditions for reflexivity. Secondly, the article discusses how numerical data, especially performance indicators, appear to impede an open and reflexive mindset. Thirdly, the article highlights how the type of knowledge referenced in reflections has a significant bearing on the type of reflections undertaken. The article contributes to understanding reflective practice’s organizational embeddedness, providing a reparative critique for developing reflexive street-level bureaucracy organizations.