In search of a social pedagogical profession in schools. Missions and roles under reconsideration

Abstract

School is one of the areas where social pedagogy has taken on an increasingly important function. Supported by available literature, the aim of this literature review is to describe and analyse how the work of social pedagogues in schools can be manifested. The literature review shows that social pedagogical work in schools is common in many countries and emerging in others. The study shows a wide variation both between and within countries with regard to the mission and goals, status, role and function, tasks and activities of social pedagogues. The primary mission is inclusion of pupil groups or individuals with various types of psychosocial problems or school-related difficulties, followed by preventive work aimed at all pupils to counteract social exclusion in school, disciplining groups of pupils who are in various ways disrupting or breaking school norms, a consciousness-raising and mobilising mission and a more general teaching mission aimed at citizenship and democratic upbringing. The literature review shows that social pedagogy as a profession enjoys high currency and relevance in schools with a view to preventing the segregation and exclusion of pupils.

Unsettling teacher preparation: cultivating liminality and remaking space

“…Ultimately, democratising Lou's class was about more than his actions as a social pedagogue to state an explicit intention, repeat invitations to collaboration or encourage through time and space to foster collaboration. It required unlearning expected roles and instantiated hierarchies in higher education (Anderberg, 2020). Similar to what Eichsteller and Holthoff (2012) found in their study of an implementation of social pedagogy in a children's home in Essex, we also found that unlearning and trust were developed through ongoing dialogue, trusting relationship and the development of a new culture.…”

“…We also aim to demonstrate how explorations of democratic education in the USA enter into extant conversations about social pedagogy and critical social pedagogy in Europe (for example, Anderberg, 2020;Kalagiakos, 2015;Kyriacou, 2009;Matikainen et al, 2018). We present three findings that speak to the necessarily messy work of unlearning institutionalised norms that sustain hierarchical teaching and learning relationships and demonstrate the nature of a maieutic 2 disposition in bringing to life more democratic conceptions of teaching and learning.…”

“…Social pedagogy provides a framework to disrupt, reflect and co-design more inclusive and holistic spaces for teaching and learning (Anderberg, 2020;Eichsteller and Holthoff, 2012). Enacting social pedagogy with democratic intention in teacher education requires the social pedagogue to act differently in order to unsettle the current hierarchical power structures so that teacher and students become co-learners, 'inhabiting the same "life space", rather than occupying some separate hierarchical domain' (Moss and Petrie, 2019, p. 398).…”

Cross-sector and interprofessional collaborations

“…The problem of Culture (pp. [103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119] Cultures vary across many different dimensions. Weeks (2022[83]) points to Schein and Schein's (2017 [98]) 16 considerations for cultural challenges in cross-sector collaborations.…”

Social Pedagogy as a Necessary Basis for Teachers Training in Greece

“…To summarize, according to Anderberg (2020) the review shows the global differences as it comes to the role of social pedagogues in schools (about their missions, goals, status, roles, functions, tasks, activities). The central mission in most countries is to fight the exclusion of pupil groups or individuals with problems.…”