Social Work Between Civil Society and the State: Lessons for and from Hungary in a European Context

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to outline the social history of the introduction and development of social work education in Hungary from its beginnings in the interwar period until today. It demonstrates that important development took place even under Communism that paved the way for a very efficient and well-grounded re-start of social work education immediately after 1989. Although this more recent development took place in close collaboration with international partner institutions, there are grounds for maintaining that professional social work in Hungary today reflects the creative interplay between an international and a country-specific orientation. This, together with the experiences in decades of opposition, accounts for the very immediate engagement social work continues to have with politics and social politics in Hungary. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)