During the late Victorian and early Edwardian period references to ‘social work’ in the UK emerged in the context of the movement for social reform. Using a wide variety of contemporary literature, archival sources and Internet searches this article finds that, alongside charitable and philanthropic work, the term ‘social work’ referred to a particularly wide range of social, health, educational, industrial welfare and recreation activity. Few attempts were made to attribute an explicit meaning to the term and it was not used as frequently as is sometimes implied by commentaries about the period. However, voluntary and paid workers were increasingly referred to collectively as ‘social workers’ and became the subject of increasing discussion about their roles and need for training. This article traces the developments in references to social work and social workers in the literature and highlights the early debate that took place in the UK and USA about the relative importance of practical work and study of the social sciences, introducing the tension which characterised social workers’ subsequent difficulties in establishing a professional identity.

中文翻译：

---

介绍社会工作者：他们的角色和培训

在维多利亚时代晚期和爱德华时代早期，英国“社会工作”的提法出现在社会改革运动的背景下。本文利用各种当代文献、档案资源和互联网搜索发现，除了慈善和慈善工作之外，“社会工作”一词还指特别广泛的社会、健康、教育、工业福利和娱乐活动。很少有人尝试为该术语赋予明确的含义，并且它的使用频率并不像有关该时期的评论有时暗示的那样频繁。然而，志愿工作者和有偿工作者越来越多地被统称为“社会工作者”，并成为越来越多关于他们的角色和培训需求的讨论主题。