O Serviço Social e a tarefa histórica do debate urgente da educação emancipadora, como compromisso ético político à superação da “aparência” na defesa da classe trabalhadora

Abstract

This research has as its main objective, grounded in Marx’s Critical Social Theory, to deepen the understanding of the dynamics of capitalism in the domination of undergraduate education in Social Work, which has influenced the profession since its inception. It seeks to make concrete what lies in the “essence” regarding the domination and control of Capital over the type of knowledge accessible to the working class. Specifically, it focuses on social workers—a category composed mostly of women and, in its entirety, of Black people (both Black and Brown). In this context, the concrete reality has shown that gender and racial issues are embedded in the complexity of the capital–labor relationship, generating tensions in the professional practice and in the social reproduction of these workers, as they are part of the social, gender, racial, and technical division of labor. Using a bibliographic and documentary theoretical framework as its methodology, this research also aims to present the historical conditions that led to the need for the professionalization of Social Work and the orientation of social workers’ labor. In alignment with the Ethical-Political Project of Social Work, it proposes the urgency of emancipatory education in undergraduate Social Work programs as a means to overcome the prevailing order (capitalism), given the public relevance of the profession in producing impacts on people’s lives—through direct intervention and action on the expressions of the Social Question. Based on the results that could be drawn from beyond the “appearance,” this research contributes to the revision of the Social Work Curriculum Guidelines, to the profession as part of the working class, and to the broader working masses to whom social workers’ labor is directed, in the face of the barbarities and assaults of Capital.