Abstract
Responses to profound contemporary transformation processes are characterised by ‘situationalism’ as the expression of resignation in the face of overwhelming complexity. An over-emphasis on personal autonomy accompanied by a withdrawal to the seeming security of ‘given boundaries’ undermine programmes of social solidarity which had been a means of creating stability and social integration at national and European level. Social work’s origins as an academic discipline and as a profession reach back to the crisis phenomena that accompanied the early ‘project of modernity’ and the reflection on that history can help to identify a critical role of social work education in view of what could be described as the current crisis of modernity. A future vision of social work education centres on the conventional mandate of this profession to ‘make a critical difference’ with regard to deepening social divisions through rampant individualism as well as concerning trends to impose uniformity as a substitute for equality.