Abstract

Both the research that gives rise to this discussion and other studies carried out in Social Work reveal that there is still a theoretical and practical disconnection in professional performance. In this article, which is shown as a hybrid between research and discussion paper, this disconnection is problematized as the origin of the profession’s subalternity, articulating it with serious consequences such as the neoliberal instrumentalization of the profession, the depoliticization of the discipline and the delegitimization of Social Work as a source of knowledge.Based on specific research with social workers in Sexual Exploitation of Children (SEC), we put forward some of the problematic hypotheses of the theory-practice relationship in Social Work in general, and of the work of protection and guarantee of rights with children in particular. One of the fundamental theses of the argument revolves around how these two dimensions are constructed in separate dualities as distinct worlds and how this disconnection places them, comparatively, at a disadvantage when it comes to enunciating proposals for action. To conclude, we propose an exit door that leads to an encounter between both theory and practice from critical self-observation. In this way, we offer as an alternative of reflection-action the investigative systematization of experiences; betting on its critical and complex version as a way of finding points of inflection, questioning and individual and collective conscience, from which to construct situated and also founded, polyphonic and transforming propositions