Abstract
Based on the example of the plurilingual border region of South Tirol, the chapter highlights potentials and challenges for the development of a distinctive European perspective in Social Work and Social Work Education. This provides the opportunity to examine the everyday challenges and communication needs experienced in this particular context which point towards the possibilities and limits of a common understanding concerning the nature of social work beyond language, culture and national borders as well as beyond different welfare contexts and academic traditions. In spite of the difficulties highlighted, it is precisely this kind of exchange and communication that represents both the necessity and the potential for the development of a common critical understanding and a specifically European ambit of thought and action in social work practice, education and research. In this sense, the chapter also sketches an agenda for European social work as both an analytical and a political project in a continuously changing Europe.