The module provides participants with a basic understanding of the specific nature of social work as an academic discipline and as a profession from an historical perspective. It therefore helps to correct misunderstandings of the helping process in social services and allows to recognise the personal and the political nature of this highly delicate process. Students will learn that the processes that brought about modern societies, with their promises of liberty and equality but also with their dangers of dependency, destitution and exclusion, are continuously at work. They will be able to identify the outlines of similarities and differences  between present social policy options and those of early industrialisation.

• Lorenz, W. (2010), Globalizzazione e Servizio Sociale in Europa, Il Servizio Sociale,/115 Carocci Faber, Roma ISBN 978-88-7466-547-1. 
  
• Lorenz, W. (2006), Perspectives on European Social Work – From the Birth of the Nation State to the Impact of Globalisation, Leverkusen Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers, ISBN-10 3-86649-008-9.