SOUSA, Juliana de Lacerda.
Abstract:
The profession of social work was established and legitimized to act in different
expressions of the social question, whose performance has been facing
contemporary scene in a systematic attempt to rewrite the meaning ascribed to it
socially , identifying distinct legitimacy conferred to professional practice . This study
aims to examine the legitimacy of professional social work in conceptual and
historical perspective. The discussion centers on the fundamentals and prospects of
analyzes regarding this legitimacy, and traces the historical development of the
profession, highlighting the social determinants that confer meaning and legitimacy to
the occupation. To do so, it is a bibliographical research, qualitative approach, to
achieve the proposed objectives, using critical - dialectical method as the analysis
object. Given the analyzes , it is understood that the legitimacy of professional social
work refers to the social recognition of the profession, which stems from the ability to
provide answers to social needs , but also comes from reading their professional
agents carry out their professional actions , constituting the professional knowledge
and representation that make the profession . The different theoretical and
methodological perspectives that mediate the practices of social workers in their
responses to requests from social classes express the construction of responses in
different directions. This has revealed the existence of coexistence of ethical -
political projects in close contest in search of legitimacy, especially for the Ethical -
Political Professional Project and the neoconservative Project postmodern character.
