Social pedagogy
Encyclopedia
Social Pedagogy is an academic discipline concerned with theory and practice of holistic education
and care. The term 'pedagogy' originates from the Greek pais (child) and agein (to bring up, or lead), with the prefix 'social' emphasising that upbringing is not only the responsibility of parents but a shared responsibility of society. As a result, social pedagogy is a 'function of society' – it reflects how a given society at a given time thinks about education and upbringing, about the relationship between the individual and society, and about social welfare for its marginalised members. Consequently, social pedagogues work within a range of different settings, from early years through adulthood to working with disadvantaged adult groups as well as older people. To achieve a holistic perspective within each of these settings, social pedagogy draws together theories and concepts from related disciplines such as sociology
, psychology
, education, philosophy, medical sciences, or social work
.
After 1970 a lot of different methods derived from those three. In the praxis a monomethodical approach can be barely found; approaches/ concepts of action predominate which include more than the three classic methods.
Overall, social pedagogy aims to achieve:
Petrie et al. identify 9 principles underpinning social pedagogy:
Overall, social pedagogic practice is a holistic process creating a balance between:
All three elements are equal and complement each other, thus generating synergy.
While philosophers of Classical antiquity like Plato and Aristotle discussed how education could contribute to social development, social pedagogy in theory and practice only emerged through the influence of modern thinking in the Renaissance, the Reformation and later during the Enlightenment, when children started to come into the picture of social philosophy.
(1712–1778). Concerned with the decay of society, he developed his theories based on his belief that human beings were inherently good as they were closest to nature when born, but society and its institutions corrupted them and denaturalized them. Consequently, bringing up children in harmony with nature and its laws so as to preserve the good was central for Rousseau’s pedagogic theory. Rousseau innovatively “argued that the momentum for learning was provided by the growth of the person (nature) – and that what the educator needed to do was to facilitate opportunities for learning,” as Doyle and Smith note.
(1746–1827), who refined Rousseau’s thoughts by developing a method of holistic education, which addressed head, heart, and hands. These three elements are inseparable from each other in Pestalozzi’s method and need to be kept in harmony. "Nature forms the child as an indivisible whole, as a vital organic unity with many sided moral, mental, and physical capacities. Each of these capacities is developed through and by means of the others," Pestalozzi stated.
The New Education Movement led to a spread of pedagogic concepts and ideas across many European countries and made two fundamental points which demonstrate its ambition to use pedagogy for social change: “First, in all education the personality of the child is an essential concern; second, education must make for human betterment, that is for a New Era”.
Although pedagogy was early on concerned with changing social conditions through education – Rousseau is most famous for his Social Contract (1762) – its primary focus had been on the individual and his or her upbringing, which Rousseau had aimed to protect from the negative influences of society. Pedagogic thinkers like Pestalozzi and later on Montessori followed in his tradition of developing a child-centred pedagogy, which was increasingly criticised by an emerging school of thought that promoted a pedagogy focused on the collective, on the community and how to use pedagogic ideas for social betterment – or a social pedagogy, as the German educationalist Karl Mager
had written in 1844 for the first time.
In the 1920s, with influential educationalists such as Herman Nohl, German social pedagogy was interpreted from a hermeneutical perspective, which acknowledged that an individual’s life and their problems can only be understood through their eyes and in their social context, by understanding how the individual interacts with their social environment.
Following World War II and the experiences within National Socialism that exposed the dangers of collective education in the hands of a totalitarian state, social pedagogy “became more critical, revealing a critical attitude towards society and taking the structural factors of society that produce social suffering into consideration”. Consequently, contemporary social pedagogy in Germany is as a discipline linked more closely to social work and sociology than to psychology.
Due to different historical developments and cultural notions, social pedagogy has very different traditions in other countries, although these are connected through the overarching core principles of social pedagogy. And even within one country, there is not the pedagogic approach – within the general discipline pedagogy we can distinguish various approaches. Some of these are named after key thinkers like Fröbel or Montessori who have created a very specific pedagogic concept for the context of their work, while others are termed according to the medium they are utilising, such as adventure, play, circus, music, or theatre pedagogy.
Social Pedagogy can only be studied at Fachhochschule (Universities of applied Sciences), social pedagogy is offered as Bachelor of Arts(3.5 years)with 1 semester of practical placement as part of the curriculum- Graduates will have the ability to place their professional activity in legal and socio-political perspective and analyse it. The interplay of work experience in their placement and theoretical work in the university prepares the graduates to work with clients, in the field of administration and management of social organisations. For a deeper more research based study Social Pedagogy can be studied after the Bachelor as Master of Arts (2 years).
Social Pedagogy is multidisciplinary – the study includes:
Czech social pedagogues usually study at the university level (there is also possibility to study at the college where they will get a DiS. degree). Social Pedagogy is offered as a Bachelor study programme. For research based studies, Social Pedagogy can be studied as Master programme after finishing the Bachelor degree. The academics separate Social Pedagogy from the social work and they look at them as at two separate disciplines.
Cameron, C. (2004). Social pedagogy and care: Danish and German practice in young people’s residential care. Journal of Social Work, 4(2), 133–151.
Cameron, C. (2006). New Ways of Educating: Pedagogy and children's services. London: Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.
Cameron, C. (2007). What is Social Pedagogy?. London: Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.
Eichsteller, G. (2009). Social Pedagogy in Britain – Further Developments. The International Social Work & Society News Journal, 7.
Kornbeck, J. (2006). Reflections on the Exportability of Social Pedagogy and its Possible Limits. Social Work in Europe, 9(2), pp37–49.
Stewart, W. A. C., & McCann, W. P. (1967). The Educational Innovators. Volume 1 1750—1880. London: Macmillan.
http://www.socialpedagogy.co.uk – ThemPra Social Pedagogy website for further information on social pedagogy and ThemPra’s training courses
http://www.infed.org – The Online Encyclopaedia for Informal Education has various articles on social pedagogy, related themes and key thinkers
http://www.communitycare.co.uk – Community Care have published both news articles and research reports on social pedagogy over the last few years
http://www.cypnow.com – Children and Young People Now report regularly on news and developments regarding social pedagogy
http://www.socmag.net – The International Social Work and Society News Magazine brings together news from practice in the social sector across the globe, with the 7th edition including an article on the developments around social pedagogy in the UK
http://www.childrenswebmag.com – The internet’s child care magazine offers a collection of articles about good child care practice, including several on social pedagogy
Holistic education
Holistic education is a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to humanitarian values such as compassion and peace. Holistic education aims to call forth from people...
and care. The term 'pedagogy' originates from the Greek pais (child) and agein (to bring up, or lead), with the prefix 'social' emphasising that upbringing is not only the responsibility of parents but a shared responsibility of society. As a result, social pedagogy is a 'function of society' – it reflects how a given society at a given time thinks about education and upbringing, about the relationship between the individual and society, and about social welfare for its marginalised members. Consequently, social pedagogues work within a range of different settings, from early years through adulthood to working with disadvantaged adult groups as well as older people. To achieve a holistic perspective within each of these settings, social pedagogy draws together theories and concepts from related disciplines such as sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, education, philosophy, medical sciences, or social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
.
Methods
In the past 3 main methods were defined:- Individual case work- with the aim to improve/develop indiviual life circumstances,
- Social groupwork- with the aim of developing social competences,
- Community intervention work- with the aim to develop social demographic structures.
After 1970 a lot of different methods derived from those three. In the praxis a monomethodical approach can be barely found; approaches/ concepts of action predominate which include more than the three classic methods.
Principles
Social pedagogy is based on humanistic values stressing human dignity, mutual respect, trust, unconditional appreciation, and equality, to mention but a few. It is underpinned by a fundamental concept of children, young people and adults as equal human beings with rich and extraordinary potential and considers them competent, resourceful and active agents.Overall, social pedagogy aims to achieve:
- Holistic education – education of head (cognitive knowledge), heart (emotional and spiritual learning), and hands (practical and physical skills);
- Holistic well-being – strengthening health-sustaining factors and providing support for people to enjoy a long-lasting feeling of happiness;
- To enable children, young people as well as adults to empower themselves and be self-responsible persons who take responsibility for their society;
- To promote human welfare and prevent or ease social problems.
Petrie et al. identify 9 principles underpinning social pedagogy:
- "A focus on the child as a whole person, and support for the child’s overall development;
- The practitioner seeing herself/himself as a person, in relationship with the child or young person;
- Children and staff are seen as inhabiting the same life space, not as existing in separate hierarchical domains;
- As professionals, pedagogues are encouraged constantly to reflect on their practice and to apply both theoretical understandings and self-knowledge to the sometimes challenging demands with which they are confronted;
- Pedagogues are also practical, so their training prepares them to share in many aspects of children’s daily lives and activities;
- Children’s associative life is seen as an important resource: workers should foster and make use of the group;
- Pedagogy builds on an understanding of children’s rights that is not limited to procedural matters or legislated requirements;
- There is an emphasis on team work and on valuing the contribution of others in 'bringing up' children: other professionals, members of the local community and, especially, parents;
- The centrality of relationship and, allied to this, the importance of listening and communicating."
Overall, social pedagogic practice is a holistic process creating a balance between:
- the professional: (theory and concepts, reflective practitioner – the ‘head’)
- the personal: (using one’s personality, positive attitude, building personal relationships, but keeping the ‘private’ out – the ‘heart’)
- the practical: (using certain methods and creative activities – the ‘hands’)
All three elements are equal and complement each other, thus generating synergy.
Historic development
Although pedagogy varies across European countries, there are similar roots that have developed into differing strands of contemporary thinking in pedagogy. Hämäläinen explains that “historically, social pedagogy is based on the belief that you can decisively influence social circumstances through education” – and importantly, education is seen as a life-long learning process that does not only refer to children but includes educating adults, for instance in order to change their idea of children.While philosophers of Classical antiquity like Plato and Aristotle discussed how education could contribute to social development, social pedagogy in theory and practice only emerged through the influence of modern thinking in the Renaissance, the Reformation and later during the Enlightenment, when children started to come into the picture of social philosophy.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A major impetus for the current understanding of pedagogy was the educational philosophy of the Swiss social thinker Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
(1712–1778). Concerned with the decay of society, he developed his theories based on his belief that human beings were inherently good as they were closest to nature when born, but society and its institutions corrupted them and denaturalized them. Consequently, bringing up children in harmony with nature and its laws so as to preserve the good was central for Rousseau’s pedagogic theory. Rousseau innovatively “argued that the momentum for learning was provided by the growth of the person (nature) – and that what the educator needed to do was to facilitate opportunities for learning,” as Doyle and Smith note.
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Rousseau’s educational philosophy inspired ensuing pedagogues, notably Johann Heinrich PestalozziJohann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach....
(1746–1827), who refined Rousseau’s thoughts by developing a method of holistic education, which addressed head, heart, and hands. These three elements are inseparable from each other in Pestalozzi’s method and need to be kept in harmony. "Nature forms the child as an indivisible whole, as a vital organic unity with many sided moral, mental, and physical capacities. Each of these capacities is developed through and by means of the others," Pestalozzi stated.
New Education Movement
Pestalozzi’s ideas sparked interest across continental Europe, and particularly the New Education Movement transferred his pedagogic concept into various settings, such as kindergarten (Fröbel), school (Montessori, Steiner, Hahn), residential care (Korczak), and informal work with children and young people (Montessori). Thus the New Education Movement contributed to a continental pedagogic discourse, which saw children being conceptualised as equal human beings ("Children do not become humans, they already are", Korczak), and as competent, active agents ("A child has a hundred languages", Malaguzzi). Furthermore, there was increasing recognition for child participation and children’s rights, for instance in the pedagogic concepts of Montessori and Korczak.The New Education Movement led to a spread of pedagogic concepts and ideas across many European countries and made two fundamental points which demonstrate its ambition to use pedagogy for social change: “First, in all education the personality of the child is an essential concern; second, education must make for human betterment, that is for a New Era”.
Alleviating poverty
Based on the educational ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Fröbel, the German headteacher Friedrich Diesterweg (1790—1866) emphasised the social relevance of pedagogy in fighting social inequalities. For him social pedagogy was "educational action by which one aims to help the poor in society". Through the contribution of Diesterweg and other thinkers, such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, pedagogy took on a more social role, one of community education that also occurs in later writers like Paulo Freire and John Dewey.Although pedagogy was early on concerned with changing social conditions through education – Rousseau is most famous for his Social Contract (1762) – its primary focus had been on the individual and his or her upbringing, which Rousseau had aimed to protect from the negative influences of society. Pedagogic thinkers like Pestalozzi and later on Montessori followed in his tradition of developing a child-centred pedagogy, which was increasingly criticised by an emerging school of thought that promoted a pedagogy focused on the collective, on the community and how to use pedagogic ideas for social betterment – or a social pedagogy, as the German educationalist Karl Mager
Karl Mager
Karl Mager was a German educator.Mager was born in Gräfrath. He studied philology in Bonn, Berlin, and Paris, and stayed in Paris for some years, during which time he wrote Versuch einer Geschichte und Charakteristik der französischen Nationallitteratur...
had written in 1844 for the first time.
Social pedagogy
One of the first key thinkers, Paul Natorp, “claimed that all pedagogy should be social, that is, that in the philosophy of education the interaction of educational processes and society must be taken into consideration”,. His social pedagogic theories were influenced by Plato’s doctrine of ideas, together with Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative of treating people as subjects in their own rights instead of treating them as means to an end, and Pestalozzi’s method.In the 1920s, with influential educationalists such as Herman Nohl, German social pedagogy was interpreted from a hermeneutical perspective, which acknowledged that an individual’s life and their problems can only be understood through their eyes and in their social context, by understanding how the individual interacts with their social environment.
Following World War II and the experiences within National Socialism that exposed the dangers of collective education in the hands of a totalitarian state, social pedagogy “became more critical, revealing a critical attitude towards society and taking the structural factors of society that produce social suffering into consideration”. Consequently, contemporary social pedagogy in Germany is as a discipline linked more closely to social work and sociology than to psychology.
Due to different historical developments and cultural notions, social pedagogy has very different traditions in other countries, although these are connected through the overarching core principles of social pedagogy. And even within one country, there is not the pedagogic approach – within the general discipline pedagogy we can distinguish various approaches. Some of these are named after key thinkers like Fröbel or Montessori who have created a very specific pedagogic concept for the context of their work, while others are termed according to the medium they are utilising, such as adventure, play, circus, music, or theatre pedagogy.
Qualifying as a Social Pedagogue
Similar to other academic disciplines, social pedagogy is a degree-level qualification(higher education) of usually 3.5 years. There are different education routes to qualify as a social pedagogue, which vary from country to country:Germany
In Germany social pedagogy and social work have merged into one course – ‘Soziale Arbeit’- since 2007 graduates holding after successful study a double degree: Social Worker and Social Pedagogy.Social Pedagogy can only be studied at Fachhochschule (Universities of applied Sciences), social pedagogy is offered as Bachelor of Arts(3.5 years)with 1 semester of practical placement as part of the curriculum- Graduates will have the ability to place their professional activity in legal and socio-political perspective and analyse it. The interplay of work experience in their placement and theoretical work in the university prepares the graduates to work with clients, in the field of administration and management of social organisations. For a deeper more research based study Social Pedagogy can be studied after the Bachelor as Master of Arts (2 years).
Social Pedagogy is multidisciplinary – the study includes:
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Social Management
- Law and Politics
- Professional Concepts such as Mediation, Therapy, Supervision, communication concepts.
- Media
- Economy
- Social Justice
- Health
Denmark
Danish social pedagogues usually qualify at Seminariets (seminariums), which offer 3.5 year courses that include 3 placements in different pedagogic settings throughout the period of studies. Some seminariums also offer short courses on social pedagogy in English. Further studies at MA level often combine social pedagogy with interlinked disciplines, such as sociology or psychology, and can be pursued at several universities.Czech Republic
Czech Republic:Czech social pedagogues usually study at the university level (there is also possibility to study at the college where they will get a DiS. degree). Social Pedagogy is offered as a Bachelor study programme. For research based studies, Social Pedagogy can be studied as Master programme after finishing the Bachelor degree. The academics separate Social Pedagogy from the social work and they look at them as at two separate disciplines.
South America
Social Pedagogy is as well studied at University level. The titles are different to those in Germany, were you will hold a degee as Bachelor of Art in South America it will be named of Sciences.Further reading
Bengtsson, E., Chamberlain, C., Crimmens, D., & Stanley, J. (2008). Introducing Social Pedagogy to Residential Childcare in England. London: National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.Cameron, C. (2004). Social pedagogy and care: Danish and German practice in young people’s residential care. Journal of Social Work, 4(2), 133–151.
Cameron, C. (2006). New Ways of Educating: Pedagogy and children's services. London: Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.
Cameron, C. (2007). What is Social Pedagogy?. London: Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.
Eichsteller, G. (2009). Social Pedagogy in Britain – Further Developments. The International Social Work & Society News Journal, 7.
Kornbeck, J. (2006). Reflections on the Exportability of Social Pedagogy and its Possible Limits. Social Work in Europe, 9(2), pp37–49.
Stewart, W. A. C., & McCann, W. P. (1967). The Educational Innovators. Volume 1 1750—1880. London: Macmillan.
Further information
http://www.socialpedagogyuk.com – The official website for social pedagogy in the UK, run by TCRU, NCERCC, Jacaranda Recruitment and ThemPra Social Pedagogyhttp://www.socialpedagogy.co.uk – ThemPra Social Pedagogy website for further information on social pedagogy and ThemPra’s training courses
http://www.infed.org – The Online Encyclopaedia for Informal Education has various articles on social pedagogy, related themes and key thinkers
http://www.communitycare.co.uk – Community Care have published both news articles and research reports on social pedagogy over the last few years
http://www.cypnow.com – Children and Young People Now report regularly on news and developments regarding social pedagogy
http://www.socmag.net – The International Social Work and Society News Magazine brings together news from practice in the social sector across the globe, with the 7th edition including an article on the developments around social pedagogy in the UK
http://www.childrenswebmag.com – The internet’s child care magazine offers a collection of articles about good child care practice, including several on social pedagogy