El desarrollo del Trabajo Social en sus orígenes: el caso de los Estados Unidos, una lectura crítica

Abstract

The paper introduces a critical analysis on the conventional discourse prevailing in the Spanish-speaking world about the origin of Social Work as a profession, with special attention to its historical development in its origins: the United States. Classic theses defending the role of Social Work as resulting from the evolution of charity and philanthropy are rejected. Besides, the fact that it is the State, in last instance, the protagonist in the management of the social question derived from the development of the monopolistic capitalism is also questioned. Likewise, the critical historical theses that attempt to construct a structural and materialist alternative reading are doubted. These advocate for regarding the Social Work and State Social Policies as components legitimizing the social order imposed by the development of the large-scale capitalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries .Thus, the two classic positions analysing the origins of Social Work, especially represented by the practices of the COS and the Settlements Movement, are analysed. We will show that both options end up aligning with antagonistic political-moral positions: the logics of accumulation in the case of the COS and the democratic-emancipatory logics in the case of Settlements.