ABSTRACT
Social work is a demanding profession for it requires its practitioners to be able to work with contradictions as a matter of routine. One of these is that of transcending the limitations of the local to become a discipline that engages with the global and is recognised world-wide. This goal is linked to social work's desire to help excluded and marginalised peoples to become full citizens who can participate fully in mainstream society. Learning from and impacting upon the international arena in pursuit of this dream has occupied the ambitions of social work educators and practitioners during the past century.
