ABSTRACT
Social work education’s rich tradition in the former Czechoslovakia was forcibly interrupted by a totalitarian communist regime in the early 1950s. This chapter explores how knowledge, university development and practice in the field of social work have been re-presented as a totalitarian society changes into a liberal democracy. The view dominated that social work is a professional process with which to solve individuals’ social problems. Two general attitudes towards theories in social work may be identified. One is where practitioners prefer frameworks, models and scientific interpretations to explain and justify their actions. On the other hand, some professionals view social work as a human, interpersonal process, in which it is appropriate to consider the human dimension, people’s thinking and judgement, achieving higher efficiency than just by applying a technological procedure. Education in social work was taking place in the context of social transformations around the liberalization of the economic environment and legitimation of civil society.
