At the invitation of The School of Philosophy and Society of Lanzhou University, Professor Cang Lixin from the School of Politics and Law of Capital Normal University delivered an academic lecture entitled "Engels and Social Work" at 406 Xinglin Building on May 19. The lecture was presided over by Associate professor Niu Fang.

   This lecture mainly includes four parts: "Engels first used the method of social investigation to understand the condition of workers", "Engels's description of the condition of workers", "Engels's contribution to sociology and social work in the Condition of The British Working class", "The influence and effect of the Condition of the British Working class".

  Prof.Cang from the beginning discussed why Engels wanted to understand the historical origins of the British working class. Engels keenly observed the social changes caused by the industrial revolution at that time. Britain is a typical country for such changes, and only in Britain can we comprehensively study all the relations of the proletariat.

   Then, Prof.Cang introduced Engels' research process and analysis method. In the investigation and research, Engels used the basic methods of sociological research, such as observation method, interview method, statistical method, document method and contrast method.

 She called on students to pay attention to social phenomena, conduct in-depth research on them, and propose solutions on the basis of discovering social problems. During the question-asking session, she gave detailed answers to these questions as "how do we adhere to our academic ideals", "the definition of cultural garbage and how to avoid it" and "whether young people should follow Engels' research logic to continue to pay attention to the current social phenomenon".

   In this lecture, Prof.Cang shared not only the historical contributions made by Engels, but also the extension of Engels' academic achievements to social work. She suggested that students should read Marxist classics carefully, so that they can take a firm stand in front of important theory and discern the direction. The whole lecture expanded everyone's understanding of social work and triggered more thinking about social work.