Paper presented at 2010 JSWEC Conference. This paper contrasts the virtues and vices of the positivist and constructivist paradigms in social work education research and highlights the dearth of studies rooted in a critical paradigm. Questions will be raised in respect of the compatibility of different paradigms with social work values and the possibility of combining approaches in future research into social work education. The main example of research rooted in a positivist paradigm is the study published by the evaluation of the social work degree in England team in 2008. This generated standardised data from students' responses to survey questionnaires and hypothetical vignettes along with statistical profiles of students and their progression rates and statistical correlations between the variables deemed to be influential in teaching and learning. Such robust objective data may nevertheless have a limited use-value for educators and students at the grassroots. The presenter has recently completed a study of social work education which is due to be published as a textbook for students. It was an ethnographic study drawing upon a participatory approach to encourage students to share their experiences in interviews or focus groups and to submit their practice portfolios for a research reading, and it was rooted in a constructivist paradigm. This generated a wealth of real-life case studies of students' experiences of teaching and learning in university and community settings including their use of critical reflection, theory and research and the dilemmas thrown up by working with service users and other professionals. Nevertheless, I was confronted with a number of ethical and political predicaments during the conduct of the research, and the use of real-life case studies may itself prove to be controversial in due course. Evaluation of the Social Work Degree in England Team (2008) Evaluation of the New Social Work Degree Qualification in England Volume 1 Findings and Volume 2 Technical Appenix, available at the SCIE website www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk Humphrey, C. Becoming a Social Worker. A Guide for Students. London: Sage (forthcoming, October 2010