Graduation and knowledge building in Social Work in Brazil are treated in this article in the context of the historical development of Social Work as a profession. It is considered that there is a close relationship between the advance of the graduation programs and the participation of Social Workers on building knowledge in the fi eld of Social Sciences in general, as well as in the fi eld of the Social Work in particular. We see the historical development of Social Work in Brazil; we characterize the graduation programs created in the 70’s and its’ development until nowadays; we consider the knowledge production within thesis and dissertation; within the research projects and the bibliographic production developed in the context of the graduation of the 23 graduation programs in development in the area of Social Work in Capes, considering the period from 2001 to 2003.