In this year's fourth issue, we take a closer look at social work education and social work as a profession. To better understand the history of social work education, we have to go back as early as the end of the nineteenth century. This is when social work education programmes were first established.
The first full-time curricula for social work emerge in the early twentieth century. At the time, however, this was not evident as there was debate as to whether social work was a real profession. This debate – the so-called Flexner debate – was triggered started in 1915 at the 42nd National Conference of Charities and Correction in Baltimore, where Abraham Flexner addressed the audience. At the time, Flexner contributed to the recognition of medical practice as a scientific profession and was considered an authority in his field. At the conference, he claimed that social work, unlike medicine, was not a true scientific profession. According to him, social work was too abstract and works with unclear objectives to be recognised as a scientific profession. He also pointed out in that social work mainly relied on other ‘real’ professionals – such as medicine and psychology – to solve problems they faced.
Although the debate on what kind of professional social work is, is still ongoing, more and more social work education programmes were emerging, and the Global definition of social work also recognised it as an academic discipline. With this issue, we further highlight some of these professionalisation debates and their significance for social work in general and social work education in particular. In this way, we hope to further stimulate the debate on social work as a profession.
We wish you much reading pleasure.