Social work and production of knowledge in the undergraduate: study of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the thematic emphases of knowledge production in undergraduate Social Work programs in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, in dialogue with the thematic axes of the XXIII Seminar of the Latin American Association for Teaching and Research in Social Work (ALAEITS), held in November 2022 in Montevideo (ALAEITS, 2022), and the XXIV edition of the ALAEITS Seminar, which will take place in October 2025 in Santiago. This is a descriptive-exploratory study based on documentary and bibliographic sources, which was conducted through the analysis of undergraduate thesis in Social Work between 2017 and 2023, available in the open-access institutional repositories of three universities: the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil; the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina; and the Alberto Hurtado University (UAH), Chile. The results indicate that 61.6% (ALAEITS, 2022) and 81% (ALAEITS, 2025) of the final theses reflect the traditional linkage of Social Work, both in intervention and research, to the field of social policies, rights, and citizenship. The keywords, grouped into 30 categories, are highly representative of the broad thematic scope of research and intervention in Latin American Social Work. Finally, it was observed that the professional category itself, in terms of training and undergraduate education, postgraduate studies, history, and professional practice, is addressed in only 10% of the works.