Social Pedagogy concepts & theories

What 'social pedagogy' means:

Social pedagogy is an academic discipline that draws on core theories from various related disciplines, such as education, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Social pedagogic practice is concerned with human beings' learning, well-being and inclusion into society. The term pedagogy is derived from the Greek pais (child) and agein (to lead, to bring up). As a concept, social pedagogy is founded on humanistic values and an image of children as active agents and competent, resourceful human beings. Cameron (2005) translates pedagogy as 'education in its widest sense', a holistic approach towards children's experiential learning with head, heart, and hands. Particularly in the context of residential child care the terms social pedagogy and pedagogy are often used synonymously. Kornbeck (2007) illustrates the close relationship of the two terms by describing social pedagogy as the provision of social welfare based on pedagogic principles.

How social pedagogy emerged:

It is worth noting that social pedagogy has emerged in order to address culturally specific social problems through educational means (see Hämäläinen, 2003), and as every culture encounters their own unique problems, solutions to social problems are highly context-dependent. As a result, there is no agreed definition for social pedagogy - its meaning is specific to the context, the culture and the time. In this sense we can speak of social pedagogy as socially constructed.

Accordingly, social pedagogy is a 'function of society' (Mollenhauer, 1964). This means that it describes how a given society thinks about children's upbringing, about the relationship between the individual and society, and how it supports disadvantaged or marginalised members of society. Throughout history, different cultures have therefore constructed varying meanings of social pedagogy. If you are interested in exploring the development of social pedagogy further, please click here ...