ABSTRACT
This chapter explores if and how social work practices over the course of history and up until today have contributed to the shaping of social policy and social policy reform, and in particular what kinds of knowledge of social problems underpins such contributions. It draws on an extensive research project presently underway in Denmark focusing on the development of views on human beings in social work in the interplay of policies, knowledge and technologies. The chapter explores three types of relation and illustrates with historical and/or present examples of social work in Denmark: a proactive relation, an ambivalent relation and a defensive relation. It ends with a short reflection on whether the shaping of productivity as a constituent factor is a contextual characteristic of the Danish social democratic welfare state or connected to the role of social work in advanced welfare states more generally.
