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Mercosur is a South American regional integration bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay as full members, established in 1991 with the primary goal of promoting economic cooperation and free trade among member countries. While the bloc has achieved relative economic consolidation, the construction of an integrated social agenda remains fragile, reproducing structural inequalities among its members. Within this context, social work asserts itself as a strategic field for analyzing and intervening in the expressions of the social issues on a regional scale. Despite shared professional traditions rooted in critical theory, the literature on social work education across Mercosur remains scarce, leaving significant gaps in understanding how social work professional formation navigates the tensions between regional integration and global demands. The present study examines convergences and asymmetries in social work education across Mercosur member countries, with particular attention to how the international dimension is incorporated into social work school curricula.
Methods
A qualitative approach was adopted, combining theoretical review of social work education frameworks across Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay with empirical data drawn from the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil. Curricular guidelines and professional regulation frameworks across member countries were systematically analyzed. The study also incorporates a pedagogical dimension, as it emerged from a collective process involving undergraduate social work students as active participants in data collection and analysis, integrating teaching, research, and academic mentorship as inseparable dimensions of critical education.
Results
Social work education across Mercosur countries shares foundational commitments, including a critical stance toward social inequalities, a rights-based framework, and a transformative professional project. These convergences coexist with significant structural asymmetries in curricular organization, course load requirements, professional regulation, and institutional conditions, reflecting distinct historical trajectories and country-specific social policy configurations. Most strikingly, the study reveals a consistently limited incorporation of the international dimension across all member countries, where global processes tend to occupy a secondary position relative to local realities. This fragmentation restricts future social workers capacity to understand and respond to the transnational forces shaping social policies and inequalities across the region.
Conclusions and Implications
Strengthening social work education in Mercosur requires building a more articulated regional project capable of integrating knowledge production and international dialogue. Expanding the international dimension of curricula, promoting academic exchanges, and reinforcing critical perspectives that connect local and global realities are not merely pedagogical choices but constitute a political and epistemological commitment to understanding and transforming social realities. The consolidation of a Latin American social work project is both an institutional challenge and a collective responsibility. For social work education to serve justice and human emancipation in the contemporary world, it must actively bridge the particular and the universal, refusing the fragmentation that leaves structural inequalities uncontested.