依工業先進國家的經驗，社會工作與社會福利發展是回應各該國社會、政治、經濟與意識型態變遷的制度產物。就社會工作與社會福利後進國家的發展經驗言，來自殖民母國、或是工業先進國家的知識擴散，是促成這些國家社會工作與社會福利學術與實務姿展的觸媒。本文試圖探索1980年代以來，台灣社會工作與社會福利的學術發展趨勢，及其受到哪些外部國際社會工作與社會福利學術與實務發展和國內社會、政治、經濟與意識型態變遷的影響。本研究是國科會委託中央研究院社會學研究所進行的社會學門前瞻規劃研究的一環，以國內社會工作與社會福利的五個重要的學術期刊《社會政策與社會工作學刊》、《台大社會工作學刊》、《台灣社會工作學刊》、《東吳社會工作學報》、《台灣社會福利學刊》，以及廣受社會工作與社會福利學術與實務界重視的《社區發展季刊》爲主要研究對象，分析其中的學術或實務研究性質論文，藉以觀察台灣社會工作與社會福利學術發展的軌跡。

Social work as a profession in Taiwan is very young. Its beginnings are to be found within the diffusion of American social work and international community development movement in the 1960s. Since the 1980s the rapid development of social welfare in Taiwan has coexisted with development of social work academia in the same political and economic context. Undoubtedly, the latter interplays with the former. Social work originated from Western society, and generally speaking, tendency of social welfare and academic foci in the West dominates other countries' study subjects and development of social welfare. This study is concerned on how social, economic, and political environment work upon the traces of social work academia in Taiwan. We intend to figure this out through analyzing keywords of disquisitions in five important academic journals: Social Policy & Social Work, NTU Social Work Review, Taiwanese Social Work (once named Journal of Social Work until 2002), Soochow Journal of Social Work, Taiwanese Journal of Social Welfare, and Community Development Journal, which is generally viewed as a representation of social work practice in Taiwan. We use content analysis and historical research as methods in the study, and then discuss these keywords' correlation with the contemporary settings.