The objective of this study is to reflect on the historic particularity of Social Work research and of the challenges related to the special set of circumstances that are presented in the contemporary context. The study is supported by and considers three pillars, which are analyzed from the particularity of Social Work research. They include: the centrality occupied by the subjects that participate in the referred to research; the return and social scope of these studies; and the material transformations in the conditions of those involved, in the actions of the professionals and in social organizations. The study concludes by reaffirming that research is constitutive and constituent of the professional practice of Social Work, being determined by its intervening nature and by its historic insertion in the social technical division of labor.
Social Work research; production of knowledge; professional practice