Abstract
The relationship between social work and research is not straightforward. Some see it as politically neutral, a ‘good thing’ for social work and for service users, while others are highly critical of the connection between evidence-based practice (EBP) and managerialism. In this extract, Walter Lorenz, a social work professor based in Italy who co-founded the European Journal of Social Work, locates the controversies about research within the ‘fundamental ambiguities’ of social work. Lorenz draws on Habermas’s (1987) distinction between ‘the life-world’ and ‘the system’ to present a wide-ranging argument about the nature of research and its contribution to the identity and profession of social work. Because this is such an important and contested topic, the list for further reading is inevitably lengthy.