Analysing the dimensions of social pedagogy from an international perspective

ABSTRACT

Over recent years, social pedagogy has emerged or undergone transformation processes in many countries, justifying the need to understand how it is being shaped and transformed throughout the world. However, conceptual ambiguity and lack of a homogenous and unified theoretical body accentuate the dilemma of whether social pedagogy is a specific area of knowledge, a professional field, a research field or all of these at once. We have moved into a stage where we do not have an immediate answer as to what social pedagogy is, what kind of knowledge it is or what its specific working methods are. This research aims to provide a comprehensive and rigorous analysis of social pedagogy from an international perspective. The methodology employed herein is the Delphi method, using three questionnaires in three different phases. Based on the individual contributions of a group of renowned experts from different countries, our aim is to build a global, current and integrated view of social pedagogy.

RESUMEN

A lo largo de los últimos años la Pedagogía Social ha pasado por procesos de emergencia y transformación en numerosos países. Esto justifica la necesidad de comprender el movimiento de formación y transformación de la Pedagogía Social en el mundo. Pero la ambigüedad conceptual y la carencia de un cuerpo teórico homogéneo y unificado acentúan el dilema sobre si la Pedagogía Social es un área de conocimiento específico, un campo de trabajo profesional, un campo de investigación o todos ellos a la vez. Nos trasladamos a un escenario dónde no tenemos una respuesta inmediata sobre qué es la Pedagogía Social, qué tipo de saber es o cuáles son sus métodos específicos de trabajo. Esta investigación pretende aportar un análisis exhaustivo y riguroso sobre la Pedagogía Social desde un contexto internacional. La metodología utilizada en la investigación es el método Delphi, aplicando tres cuestionarios en tres fases diferentes. A partir de las aportaciones particulares de un conjunto de expertos de reconocido prestigio de diferentes países, se pretende construir una mirada global, actual e integrada de la Pedagogía Social.

KEYWORDS:

• International social pedagogy
• Delphi methodology
• social pedagogy indicators

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Pedagogía Social Internacional
• metodología Delphi
• indicadores de la Pedagogía Social

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Àngela Janer is a pedagogue and researcher at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain), PhD student in Social Pedagogy, beneficiary of the ‘Programa de becas FPU’ of the Ministry of Education and Science (Spain), member of the research group GIPE on Educational Policy and ‘Iberoamerican Society of Social Pedagogy’ (SIPS), and specialized in Social Pedagogy from an international comparative perspective (https://uab.academia.edu/ÀngelaJaner).

Xavier Úcar is a full Professor of Social Pedagogy at Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain), specialized in Social Pedagogy and Design and Evaluation of Community Development Programs and Socio-cultural Animation programs, President of the ‘Iberoamerican Society of Social Pedagogy’ (SIPS) (2012), and co-director of the collection of books about ‘Community Action and Social-Educative Action’ of Graó Publishers (2006–2013). He has written more than 100 publications including books, book chapters and journal articles (http://uab.academia.edu/XavierUcar) (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xavier_Ucar).

Notes

1. See Appendix 2. Participating experts’ level of knowledge regarding social pedagogy.

2. See Appendix 1. Participating experts’ characteristics: name, institution belonged to, research group.

3. www.onlineencuesta.com.

4. The percentages given in reference to degree of agreement are always an approximation, as data were analysed qualitatively.