Abstract
This article proposes a reflection on the challenge of overcoming the paradoxes of modern reason regarding the tasks of university research and teaching, based on the changes in students’ profile. The study adopts empirical data, obtained through systematic measurement conducted since 2013 through a questionnaire responded by undergraduate students of social work of the Universidad de la República, Uruguay. The study considers the historical statements about contradictions of reason, exemplified by the approaches of the critical theory, recovering the emancipatory sense of questioning thought of technocratic models and the rehabilitation of conservative impulses in university education, in a moment marked by the superficiality of the professional education.
Keywords:
Social research; University Teaching Massification of higher education; Late modernity; Critical Theory