Notes for the debate on Social Work as a profession or science

Abstract

The history of Social Work has been marked by a permanent debate on the nature of the profession. Its original link with forms of State intervention in the face of the so-called social question through social policies, has raised concern about the way in which conservatism crosses the constitution of the profession, over decades that conservative character pretended to be annulled by bringing Social Work closer to the social sciences, in the search to assign it a social legitimacy that removes it from all conservative traces. The purpose of this article is to expose some historical elements that allow us to understand, on the one hand, the constitution of Social Work as a profession and, on the other, the reasons why its consideration as a social science leads to some historical misunderstandings. In this sense, the article concludes that there are issues related to the origin of the profession -its link with the State, social policy and the so-called social question- that allow us to understand it as a result of the complexity of social relations at a certain moment in the development of the profession. capital accumulation process, namely monopoly capitalism and therefore understanding Social Work as a social science, obeys an understanding that seeks a social legitimacy devoid of historical assumptions and far from the determinations associated with its social reproduction.