Socijalni rad se danas nalazi na prekretnici. S jedne strane dominiraju shvaćanja koja ga svrstavaju među sociološke discipline, po nekim drugim on se izdvaja u poseban okvir ili se jednostavno zanemaruje. Stoga se nameću tri fundamentalna pitanja: 1. koje su pretpostavke znanstvenog zasnivanja jedne posebne ljudske djelatnosti kakav je socijalni rad; 2. da li uopće postoji znanost o socijalnom radu i kakvo je njezino mjesto u razvijenoj sistematici bazičnih i aplikativnih disciplina; 3. da li postoji specifičan predmet socjalnog rada i šta on proučava? Na ta i mnoga druga pitanja mogla bi odgovoriti jedna posebna sistematska studija što bi se pozabavila tim epistemološkim problemima.Social work has arrived at a turning point presently. On the one hand, it is being dominated by concepts which place it among sociological disciplines, and on the other it is being treated as an independent part of science, or simply ignored. As a result, tree fundamental questions arise: 1. Which are the essentials of the scientific founding of a particular human activity as a social work is, 2. Is there a science of social work at all, and in the highly developed classification of basic and applicable disciplines, 3. Is there a specific object of social works and what is the object of its study? It would take a systematic study of its own, which would treat these epistemological problems to supply an answer to these questions
