Social Work Studies in the Spanish University System

Abstract

This paper analyses the general panorama that currently exists in our country in relation to university studies in Social Work. Specifically, it reviews issues such as how many degrees there are, in which universities they can be studied, what postgraduate studies are offered by our university system, what are the characteristics of students who take degrees related to social work and what is the PDI associated to the area of social work. The analysis is based on official data from the Spanish Ministry of Universities. The results show that there are 38 undergraduate degrees in Social Work; which can be studied in practically all the autonomous communities, in both presential and non-presential, public and private universities. The offer at postgraduate level is, however, more limited, which makes it difficult for graduates to continue their university studies in specific programmes in the discipline. As far as master’s degrees are concerned, there are 69 degrees in the field of “Social Work and counselling”. However, only 4 of them can be considered as social work, as they include the term in their denomination. This means that there is a certain intrusiveness, at master’s level, in the Spanish university system, since most of the degrees indexed in the field are not in social work. At doctoral level only 2 programmes have been identified; it is possible that the offer is so reduced due to the applied and practical nature that has traditionally characterised social work, and which has distanced it from more scientific contexts, making the number of professionals interested in doing a doctoral thesis low. This trend, however, is beginning to change, especially since the European Higher Education Area has made social work studies equal to those of other disciplines.