This essay analyzes the opposition between ontological and instrumental perspectives as a reference for the particular field of the professions and the process of professional education of social workers. To do so it raises an important question: what type of professional is to be educated, intellectuals or technical-operatives? Considering the current stage of capitalist accumulation, it seeks to contribute to the contemporary debate about the strategic social direction assumed since the 1990s by the main representative organizations of the professional category of social workers in Brazil.
Social Work; Ontology; Praxis