Abstract: Abstract: The Report to the 18th National Congress of the CPC explicitly proposes to change the development mode and accelerate the reform of social system. Promoting the change of social development pattern is both the internal motivation and the main goal of deepening the reform of social system. This article begins with the concept of development mode, defines the its connotations from four aspects, puts forth a classification of it in five perspectives, traces the historical evolution of development mode, gives a systematic summary of the three major development modes that have formed under the influence of different views about development at different stages of development since the founding of PRC, reveals the close relationship between development mode transformation and Chinas modernization, argues in depth for the necessity and inevitability of transforming the social development pattern of contemporary China, and henceforth elaborated the positive roles that social work plays in promoting social development mode shift. The article also points out that Chinas social work faces the task of reforming its own development pattern in addition to that of promoting economic and social development pattern transformation. The path and goal of Chinas social work development is to achieve scientific development that unifies outward expansion and internal improvement and ensures growth in number, scale, space expansion and meeting external demand as well as structural optimization, quality improvement, strength enhancement and expansion of domestic demand.

Key words: development mode, social system, social work