Changing practice and values? An exploration of social pedagogy for a Council’s Children's Services Workers

Social pedagogy is a conceptual framework which takes both an educational and social perspective to addressing social problems, and is embedded within the children’s services and wider social workforce in many European countries. By contrast, England and its children’s services organisations are without a social pedagogy heritage. This study fills a gap in the evidence base for, and definition of, social pedagogy in England by exploring its potential challenges and benefits within children’s services settings.
The research takes an exploratory approach to the influence of social pedagogy using a Council’s children’s services as a case study. The study utilises convergent methods of data collection, analysis and interpretation, including questionnaires, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. The results and conclusions make a significant contribution to the social pedagogy knowledge through a new model of the practice framework for social pedagogy – the ‘Star Model’, a proposed definition of social pedagogy, identification of social pedagogy’s unique contribution to children’s services and the organisational conditions necessary and a proposed approach to its development within the multiple professional fields of the children’s services workforce.

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