Social Pedagogy in the UK : Gaining a firm foothold ?

The paper asks why, unlike much of Europe, the UK has until recently taken very little interest in social pedagogy. It looks at the meanings of social pedagogy, including the importance of both ‘social’ and ‘pedagogy’ in understanding the term and argues that social pedagogy policy, practice, and theory are interlinked and develop out of specific national contexts. There is an account of the fairly new UK interest in the subject, including some interest from government and some higher education institutions. The paper argues that this interest springs largely from concerns about the welfare of disadvantaged children, especially those that are in care, and an aspiration to improve the practice of people who work with them. There has been much less interest in social pedagogic theory. The paper concludes that unless theory, grounded in a UK context, is given equal prominence to practice, together with education and qualifications in the subject, social pedagogy will not achieve a firm footing in the UK.


Introduction
We should start with a definition of the United Kingdom (UK).The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland, Wales and (part of) Northern Ireland.It has a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with certain powers devolved, since 1998, to the parliaments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.The Scottish Parliament intends to hold a referendum on administrative independence from the UK in 2014.
Historically, the UK has not paid attention to social pedagogy, yet in the last decade there has been some interest in this field from practitioners, policy-makers and academics.Indeed, is now beginning to be named in public policy documents (DfES, 2003(DfES, , 2005(DfES, , 2007)), and in Scotland is under consideration as a way of reclaiming a Scottish tradition in social work (Cohen et al., 2004;Smith and Whyte, 2008).
In much of Europe, social pedagogues work in a range of children and adult services, from schools to residential care, to out-of-school play and care, youth work (Petrie, et al 2006).While they may draw on similar theories and have similar values, it should be emphasised that there is not one understanding of social pedagogy and it is not homogeneous throughout Europe, (Kornbeck and Jensen 2009).This paper will speculate as to why, historically, the UK did not engage with social pedagogy from the time when the expression was first coined until the last 20 or 30 years.It will then consider the meanings attached to social pedagogy as policy, theory and practice and the growing interest in it in the UK today, listing some recent developments.It ends by asking about the conditions necessary if social pedagogue is to gain a firm foothold in the United Kingdom.

Why has social pedagogy been little known in the United Kingdom?
As we shall see, the term social pedagogy was coined around the middle of the 19 th century and is today understood in much of Europe.Why then has it been relatively unknown in the UK?The UK's ignorance of the term may be partly located in insularity and above all a lack of competence in other languages.This view has some merit, nevertheless the work of 18 th Century enlightenment philosophers (which may be seen as one part of social pedagogy's DNA) had crossed the channel in both directions.There was intellectual intercourse between British empiricists and philosophers, such as Newton, Locke, Hume and Godwin and thinkers and visionaries like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Fichter.To take one example pertinent to our case, spanning the late 18 th and into the 19 th century, Robert Owen, the Utopian reformer, drew on the work of the educational philosopher Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and also engaged in European socialist debate (Cole, 1930).
So why is there no reference to social pedagogy in British educational writing during the 19 th century?And why did British scholars continue to be ignorant of the term until the last decades of the 20 th century?The answers to these questions must be speculative.A partial response is that Britain had its eyes elsewhere.Political and commercial preoccupation with the British Empire and with burgeoning industrialisation may have all provided a powerful distraction from European affairs.
For the upper and middle classes, a fear of radicalism and the frightening spectacle of the French revolution also meant a turning away from Continental ways of thought.Draconian measures were put in place against public meetings for the discussion of 'revolutionary' ends.A particular example is the Peterloo Massacre, in which a peaceful meeting, addressed by the known radical, 'Orator' Hunt, was broken up by yeomanry reinforced by armed Hussars, with much bloodshed and more than 20 deaths (Wood, 1960:49).For some this extended towards educational measures: It must also be said that, for some, the education of the poor was to be feared, on the grounds that it would make them less satisfied with their station.It was this, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, which caused Pitt seriously to consider introducing a bill for the suppression of Sunday schools (Silver, 1965:17).In passing it needs to be said that there were many who were less afraid of 'the labouring poor' and the revolutionary effect of education.Samuel Whitbread told the House of Commons: My wish is not to get rid of the Poor Laws, but I think by taking proper steps they may hereafter become obsolete . . .In the forefront of my plan for the exaltation of the character of the labourer must appear a scheme for general national education.Hansard (1807) VIII, 865. (Quoted in Cowie, 1973: 865).Similarly, in Scotland, Scotland education was thought to foster social cohesion rather than insubordination (Smout, 1985).
Perhaps most significant in seeking to understand why the term social pedagogy was not taken up in the UK is a third hypothesis: the effects of the Napoleonic wars and in particular the promulgation of the Napoleonic Code (1804) distanced the UK from social developments in Europe.Napoleon devised a code of law, which was either taken up or imposed widely throughout Europe: Within the French empire, Germans, Italians, Illyrians, Belgians and Dutch were all governed by the Napoleonic codes and their concepts of family, property, the individual, and public power which were thus generally spread throughout Europe.(Roberts, 1996: 319).
Britain, however, was victorious against Napoleon and retained its own common law and way of doing things.An everyday marker for this is that it was only toward the end of the 20 th century, and then with some apparent reluctance, that the UK adopted Napoleon's metric system, with its logical divisions of weight, distance, volume and money into groupings such as centimetres, metres and kilometres, as opposed to inches, feet, yards and miles.
Whatever the underlying causes, Britain was geographically historically and politically different from mainland Europe and less likely to be open to its philosophical and educational developments than other European countries.This continues today.Cameron and Moss (2011: 13) refer to the difficulty social pedagogy has 'mapping on to Anglophone understandings of social work or child welfare' and cite Smith and Whyte: The location of welfare within the wider social context, apparent in Scottish and European models, is less pronounced in the Anglo American traditions … {R}esponses to social problems tend to be located at the level of the individual, detached from the social and wider community context.(Smith and Whyte, 2008:22).Other papers in this issue of EPAA trace the development of social pedagogy in continental Europe, its somewhat varied histories and its relationships with social work, welfare and education.For the UK, the question is why, after 150 or so years during which social pedagogy was virtually a closed book, is there now a developing interest?
Before considering the factors that have influenced this development, it is necessary to discuss what social pedagogy entails and the meanings encompassed by the term as it appertains to theory, social and educational policy, and practice.It is a term composed of two parts ('social' + 'pedagogy') and both are important: we are dealing with a particular form of pedagogy.Those of us with a background in education are familiar with 'pedagogy' as especially concerned with the science of teaching and learning, and the practice of teaching.The shorter Oxford English Dictionary relates 'pedagogue' to the Greek words for child and for leader and traces its history to the slave who escorted, a boy to take lessons with his tutor: the pedagogue was accompanying him on his path to learning.In classical times this meaning gradually expanded and 'pedagogue' came to denote the tutor himself -a meaning that continued certainly into the 19 th century.But the term social pedagogy, coined in 19 th century Germany, had wider meanings.Karl Mager, the editor of the Pädogische Revue, in the first recorded use of the term saw it as: 'die Theorie der gesamten, in einer gegebenen Gesellschaft vorkommenden Erziehung, einschließlich der Deskription der geschehenen Praxis' (Winkler, 1988, p. 41.)This has been translated by Dr Thomas Gabriel, the German associate in a study conducted at the Institute of Education as the 'theory of all the personal, social and moral education in a given society, including the description of what has happened in practice' (Gabriel, 2000:1).The quotation gives rise to three interesting observations.First, in order to maintain some of the richness of the term, in translating Erziehung Gabriel does not use one word -upbringing, which would be a plausible option -but feels the need to employ four terms: 'personal, social, and moral education'.Second, it denotes both a theoretical field and one concerned with practice.Third, this is pedagogy sited within a particular, given (gegebenen) society, rather than a more abstract, non-contextualised pedagogy: in gaining a foothold in the UK, social pedagogy finds its own particular social context.Such understandings have continued and been further conceptualised in the German tradition: In Germany, social pedagogy has emerged as an academic science in which theory and practice have developed in a dynamic and reflexive way ... Social pedagogy can be described as an action oriented social science (Handslungwissenschaft) concerned with practical or social issues by referring to theoretical knowledge in a given discipline (Staub-Bernasconi, 2007).Eichsteller and Holtoff, 2011:33.

Social pedagogy as policy
Social pedagogy is about learning and development (pedagogy), and it is also about the social.Mager (above) was describing a pedagogy beyond the private domain of the 19 th century family and the tutors hired to provide upper and middle class young men with a liberal education.Social pedagogy is provided by a given society, for its own social ends, which has at its heart the relationship between the individual person and society.It also positions pedagogy as a matter for policy and theory as well as practice.
In seeking to clarify the meaning of social pedagogy, without providing a once-and-for all definition, at a policy level it can refer to measures that are broadly educational (rather than health, employment, or welfare benefit measures) and are provided for specific social purposes.The 19 th century saw the increasing introduction of educational means, alongside others, to address the consequences of the Industrial Revolution.This may be seen in the work of the Ragged School Union: There is a Scriptural instruction as the foundation, then secular instruction, industrial classes, street employments, refuges, the feeding schools, adults, mothers and infant classes, clothing and sick funds, saving banks, libraries and reading rooms, magazines and periodicals, prayer meetings, lectures, ragged churches and emigration.J. MacGregor, Ragged schools, 1852: 22, quoted in Cowie, 1973: 37.The quotation positions educative provision (instruction, classes, libraries, reading rooms, lectures) alongside other non-educative measures such as emigration, clothing funds and 'feeding school' as means for improving the lot of the poor.In the sense that social pedagogy is used to address social problems, it can be applied historically to thinkers and reformers working before the field was defined (Petrie, 2002).As Hämäläinen puts it: From the very beginning, the social pedagogical perspective was based on attempts to find educational solutions to social problems.Thus, the educationists who paid attention to poverty and other forms of social distress, for example, Juan Luis Vives, Johann Amos Comenius, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Friedrich Fröbel, from the pedagogical point of view and without using the term 'social pedagogy', are pioneers of the social pedagogical perspective (Hämäläinen, 2003: 71).
The same is true of the UK: it is possible to view many early reformers as engaged in social pedagogy, theory and practice who did not name it as such.But this holds not only of the past.In the UK today, many of the concerns of the nineteenth century continue to be addressed by care and educational provisions that can be brought together, at a conceptual level, as social pedagogy.

Theory and practice
Given that all forms of education are informed by value systems, it follows that the aims and practices of social pedagogy depend on the values and theories (explicit or not) of its public or philanthropic providers.This relates to an important concept: the German Bildung, part of Germany's rich vocabulary relating to the education of the human being as a member of society.In social pedagogy, Bildung represents the development of human beings (i) as full members of society aware of, and acting on, their responsibilities towards themselves and others, together with (ii) the continuing personal transformation of each person in interaction with others and with cultural life.
What constitutes Bildung is closely connected with the images of the child, the human being and society itself that predominate in any particular society.For example, in the UK Thomas Barnardo (1845Barnardo ( -1905) ) introduced cottage homes for homeless children, with small groups of girls and boys in the care of a house mother or house father (Wagner, 1979).They appeared to replicate to some extent the religious and social values of the 'respectable working class' family -with its attendant social disadvantage.In contrast, the utopian industrial communities set up by Robert Owen stemmed from the Enlightenment and was based on a different, democratic image human society and human being (Petrie, 2002).Critical reflection on 'educational' policies (that is educational in the broad sense, not confined to schooling) is the realm of social pedagogic theory.
Social pedagogic theory examines the relationship between society and education, looking at how education affects and is affected by social, economic and political structures.For example, the theoreticians Heinz Sünker and Hans-Uwe Otto (Sünker and Otto, 1997) have drawn attention to how, in Nazi Germany, 'pedagogisation' extended throughout life.Educational institutions such as schools and youth movements, it aimed to instill notions of racial 'purity' and the superiority of Germanic peoples throughout the population; the image of the human being involved was based on hierarchical, nationalistic ideals.Pedagogy was but one of the means used by National Socialism to achieve its political ends.The example demonstrates that social pedagogy, as to both policy and practice is not value free, it is situated in and relates to particular societies and the values that inform them.In broad terms, it can be a force for oppression or for emancipation and social pedagogic theory can throw light on this.
In some European countries, the theoretical field of social pedagogy (sometimes teamed with social work) is the subject of a degree at Master's level which takes around five years to complete.But it is not only a matter of theory: students undertake practice placements in service settings so that theory and practice interact (Petrie, 2006).They may draw on theories such as those of Klaus Mollenhauer (1966, 1978) and Hans Thiersch (1986, 1992) who developed concepts such as Alltagsorientierung (an orientation towards everyday life) and Lebensweltorientierung (literally, living world orientation), which relate directly to practice.They are concerned with the perspectives of the personal, social, economic and political forces which impact on people's everyday lives and have brought them thus far in their development.Understanding the world-view of service users and appreciating the subjective validity of their decisions are seen as contributing towards an emancipatory process.This is a socially-based way of thinking about those with whom social pedagogues work and one that is informed by democratic values.Social pedagogy practice is involved with individual persons, holistically, while the social pedagogue is encouraged to bring her/himself as a whole person to the work: head, heart and hands.This approach is applied to adults as well as to children; in Europe today, social pedagogues work across the age range, although it is true that the majority are employed to work with children and young people.
Drawing on research in a range of European countries, I have summarised the principles of social pedagogic practice as follows (Petrie et al., 2006: 22; see also Social Education Trust, 2001): 1.A focus on the child as a whole person and support for the child's overall development.2. The practitioner seeing herself/himself as a person, in relationship with the child or young person.3. Children and staff are seen as inhabiting the same life-space, not as existing in separate hierarchical domains.4. 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.5. Pedagogues are also practical, so their training prepares them to share in many aspects of children's daily lives and activities.
6. Children's associative life is seen as an important resource: workers should foster and make use of the group.7. Pedagogy builds on an understanding of children's rights that is not limited to procedural matters or legislated requirements.8.There is an emphasis on team work and on valuing the contributions of others in 'bringing' up children: other professionals, members of the local community and especially parents.9.The centrality of relationship and allied to this, the importance of listening and communicating.As we shall see, it is a growing understanding of pedagogic practice such as the above which underlies the interest in social pedagogy in the UK today.An attendant danger is that, in keeping with the observation of Coussee et al ( 2010) referred to later in this paper, it is a list of principles that concentrates largely on the pedagogic with less understanding of the societal context for that pedagogy.The largely German theoretical and critical analysis of how the social and the pedagogic relate is absent from it: It is only because of the human community that man can become human.The single individual is only an abstraction, just as the physician's atom.Concerning everything that constitutes man as human: man does not first exist as an individual who then can relate to others: without a community man could not be man., (Natorp, 1899:90, Translated andquoted, Rothuizen, 2009).

Why is there interest in UK now?
It is necessary to chart the UK's developing interest in social pedagogy, which developed increasing momentum from the late 1990s.In the academic world, this interest arose from professional and research interchange with colleagues in continental Europe, not necessarily focused directly on social pedagogy but concerned with services such as early childhood education and care, youth work and services for children and adults in challenging life circumstances.An opening up of the field came in part from academics with an interest in social work and social work training (Courtioux, et al, 1986;Lorenz, 1994).Publications coming from the UK itself tended to explore the extent to which the social pedagogy approach was preferable to that of social work or social care (Cannan et al 1992;Davies Jones, 1994;Crimmens, 1998;Higham, 2001).
There was also the influence European Childcare Network, co-ordinated from 1986 to 1996 by Peter Moss, at the Institute of Education, University of London, who '... during the course of this and later work, including membership of review teams participating in OECD's review of early childhood policies Starting Strong, became familiar with countries where social pedagogy was an important influence' (Cameron and Moss, 2011:19).This network brought together educationalists whose publications and conferences were informed by egalitarian and feminist ideals, together with an understanding of children as social agents actively involved in their own education.The approach presented an attractive alternative to the more utilitarian -and scarce -early years' childcare to be found in the UK.The work was taken up by pressure groups such as the Daycare Trust and The National out of School Alliance.Alongside the European Childcare Network an informal grouping, the European Network for School Age Childcare, was initiated n 1987, with annual conferences and some publications (e.g., Meijvogel and Petrie, 1996).All these activities resulted in the word 'pedagogue' becoming somewhat more familiar to at least some English ears and with an application beyond welfare and care, as Cannan and others have recommended.
In the late 1990s, for the first time a British government department showed an active interest in social pedagogy.This arose out of immediate concerns and scandals surrounding residential care, such as those concerning child abuse (Waterhouse, 2000) and the use of 'pin down' -the excessive and punitive control of children (Staffordshire County Council, 1991).Additionally, multiple disadvantages were known to be associated with life in the care system (e.g., Department of Health, 2000;Chase, Douglas, Knight, Rivers, and Aggleton, 2002).Children in, or with an experience of, public care were more likely to be excluded from school, to be non-attenders, and to leave without qualifications (Social Exclusion Unit, 1998;Department of Health, 2000).They were more likely to be involved in criminal activity and had a disproportionately high number of teenage conceptions (Barnardo's, 1996).On leaving care, they were at greater risk of unemployment and homelessness, relative to the general population (Biehal et al., 1995;Baldwin et al., 1997;Social Services Inspectorate, 1997;Department of Health, 2000).
To discover what might be learned from practice in Europe government commissioned a programme of research at the Institute of Education, University of London.This programme was the foundation for CUSP, the Centre for Understanding Social Pedagogy at the Institute of Education, as an international forum promoting research and teaching in social pedagogy.(http://www.ioe.ac.uk/research/40899.html).The research programme examined the theory and practice of social pedagogy in continental Europe, the education of social pedagogues and their role in services such as children's early education, residential care, foster care and family support services (Petrie and Cameron, 2009).Notably, in 2008 the Department for Education commissioned a pilot scheme introducing social pedagogy into children's residential homes, by means of recruiting two social pedagogues from abroad, for each of eighteen homes.Some social pedagogues dropped out and were replaced so that overall 41 social pedagogues were recruited (Cameron et al, 2011;Berridge et al, 2011).Other academic activities that arose during this period included the development of a few university degrees, optional modules in degree courses and, at the Institute of Education, one Masters of Arts (Cameron et al, 2011).We will return to these later.These activities are not limited to academia; organisations concerned primarily with promoting and developing social pedagogy are shown in Box 1.
There is also a programme, Head Heart and Hands, introducing social pedagogy into foster care in four local authorities and one private organisation in England and two local authorities and one third sector organisation in Scotland.
Developments specific to Scotland include Children in Scotland's work assisting the Scottish Government in promoting discussion about the children's sector workforce.This had one focus on the role, practice and education of pedagogues and its potential contribution to workforce development (www.childreninscotland.org.uk/wfi/wfi5.htm).There have also been cross-sector 'learning conversations' about developing social pedagogy more widely in Scotland.These have had input especially from The Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde, with a special interest in children in the public care system.Note that in the UK, interest has been largely with children and young people; it has not (yet) extended to adult services as in continental Europe.

Box 1. Organisations promoting and developing Social Pedagogy
Thempra , a social enterprise founded in 2008, is committed to furthering social pedagogy (www.thempra.org.uk).It has conducted many training courses and undertaken a pilot programme introducing social pedagogy into children's residential care in Essex.Jacaranda (www.jacarandarecruitment.co.uk) has also played an influential part.It too is an organisation with a training remit and leads study visits to Germany and Denmark, recruits social pedagogues from mainland Europe for work in the UK and hosts an on-line social pedagogy newsletter.CUSP (above), Jacaranda and Thempra have formed the Social Pedagogy Consortium.The Consortium is delivering a national demonstration project, introducing social pedagogy into foster care for the Fostering Network.
The Social Pedagogy Development Network (www.socialpedagogy.co.uk) is led by ThemPra in partnership with the Social Pedagogy Consortium and the English branch of FICE (Féderation Internationale des Communautes Educatives).The Network is a grassroots movement for shaping and developing a UK tradition of social pedagogy.Meetings are held twice a year, hosted by local government and third sector organisations.

How can social pedagogy find a firm foothold in the UK?
From a Flemish perspective, Coussee et al. (2010: 791) argued that 'the interest in social pedagogy emerged in a context in which child and youth care in the UK was criticized with regard to (i) fragmentation of care, (ii) the professional workforce and (iii) relationships with children and young people'.The English policy background confirms this understanding.Social pedagogic practice met some of the concerns of the New Labour administration in government 1997-2011.During this time, responsibility for residential and foster care, and for childcare for working parents, moved from the Department of Health to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (currently called the Department of Education).Various local administrative and service integrations followed, some of which survived a change in administration in 2011.These developments seemed to require greater cooperation across different services and a more generalist approach, with social pedagogues working across a range of services, made a good fit with a range of policy developments and concerns (Boddy et al, 2005;Petrie et al 2009).
Nevertheless, apart from the research programme supported at the Institute of Education, central government has so far played little part in the growth of interest in social pedagogy -it is now largely a bottom-up phenomenon.The opportunity to introduce social pedagogy across the children's workforce has not been taken up and there has been no move, as yet, by central government or its agencies to develop social pedagogy either as an occupation or as a profession.
The training courses mentioned in Box 1 were funded by local government or by private agencies.
There is also the question as to whether social pedagogic practice as described above is compatible with the British social policies and British services.Kornbeck, 2002, cautions that British social work education and employing agencies may not accept this 'new' discipline.But the pitfalls awaiting social pedagogy are not limited to workforce considerations.There are also theoretical and ethical issues at stake.The final report of the pilot project that employed mainly German social pedagogues in English residential care concluded: In Germany, there was what was seen as a "Erziehungsauftrag" (social mandate regarding upbringing) or overall vision of what society hopes to achieve for young people in general which did not appear to them to be articulated for young people in England.Policy guidelines such as the five outcomes in Every Child Matters (DfES 2003) provided only a guide to what a young person should be expecting from the service they are receiving, but a social mandate would go beyond this and link to the idea of what it is to be human -Menschenbild -in a society.According to the social pedagogues, the Menschenbild forms the foundation of any social pedagogy and is shared within the professional culture (Cameron et al., 2011:70).
A major problem for the UK is the absence of distinctly social pedagogic theory, compared to the body of education or social work theory.Social pedagogy has as yet little recognition by the universities, which is where theory could be developed.And while government has been attracted to what is seen as social pedagogic practice, it has taken no part in supporting educational courses in social pedagogy or developing qualifications based in social pedagogy.In an important analysis, Coussée et al. (2010) say that the attraction to social pedagogy in the UK lies in an individualistic understanding -we want 'better' treatment of children in difficult circumstances; we do not pay attention to the word 'social' and engage insufficiently with theory, focusing instead upon the individual and their 'pedagogy': When the social in pedagogy is limited to a holistic look at the individual development of children and young people, then social pedagogy, too, will not be able to prevent pedagogical institutions being drawn into solution-oriented and individualized strategies deployed to cure social problems ...An apolitical and under-theorized import of social pedagogy cannot prevent this instrumentalization.(Coussée, et al. 2010: 801).
In the UK we still need to develop our own authentic social pedagogy, not one that attempts to import practice and theory from societies which have their own traditions, histories and concerns.This is not to say that we should, in British insularity, shut ourselves off from our neighbours: we are a society contextualized geographically and politically by mainland Europe and should be in dialogue with it.In Scotland academics are already exploring the particular roots of Scottish social pedagogy and relating this to current practice (Smith and White, 2008).But what is most necessary is to develop social pedagogic theory that is both informed by European thought and interrogates British society with its particular pedagogic institutions and policies.This paper provides evidence that there is certainly a desire to improve pedagogic practice, but we are still light on theory.Policy, theory and practice should be in a dynamic relationship, each informed and shaped by the others, in the context of this particular society and all its diversity: only this parallel development will permit social pedagogy to gain a firm foothold in the UK.

Daniel Schugurensky
Full professor at Arizona State University (ASU), with a joint appointment in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Social Transformation.Head of the Area of Justice and Social Inquiry, and coordinator of the Masters program in Social and Cultural Pedagogy.Has written extensively on youth and adult education, community development and participatory democracy.Among his recent authored and co-edited books are Ruptures, continuities and re-learning: The political participation of Latin Americans in Canada (Transformative Learning Centre, University of Toronto, 2006), Four in Ten: Spanish-Speaking Youth and Early School Leaving in Toronto (LARED, 2009), Learning