Social Work For Social Capital And Policy-Making

The Emergence of Social Pedagogy

Discribe about the Social Work for Social Capital and Policy‐Making.

Social pedagogy is the discipline of the academics that works on drawing the core theories of the related discipline such as sociology, education, philosophy, and psychology. The practice of social pedagogy is mainly concerned with the well-being, learning of the human being and society inclusion. The pedagogy term is derived from the Greek word pairs means child and again means bring up or lead (Úcar, 2015)The concept of the social pedagogy is based on the values of humanity and child’s image as competent and active agents and a human being that is resourceful. Cameron described the social pedagogy as the experimental learning of the children with heads, hands, and heart.

The social pedagogy is emerging to address or sort out the culture related problem through the means of education because every culture has its own problems that are unique to them; the solution of the social problems highly depends on context (Békési, 2007). So the definition of the social pedagogy is the Function of the Society that is how a particular society thinks about the upbringing of the children, what the relationship between the person and the society is and how the person helps the marginalized and disadvantaged society members.

The aims of the social pedagogy can be clearly defined by the diamond model. This model describes that there is a diamond in all of us. This model symbolizes the underlining principles of the social pedagogy. As a human being, all humans are precious and have a great amount of knowledge, abilities, and skills (Breslau, 2003). Therefore, every individual has the potential to shine and social pedagogy support for the same. The social pedagogy has basic five aims that are well-being and happiness, relationship, holistic learning, and empowerment.                                        

Well-being and happiness: the main aim of the social pedagogy is to provide the well-being and happiness to the individual, not based on the short-term needs, but through the approach of right based substantially. However, the term well-being and happiness seem to be similar and one, but they are notionally different happiness defines the present state and well-being defines a long-term sense of the mental, physical, emotional and social well-being (Rosendal Jensen, 2013). The state of well-being and happiness are unique and subjective. So, this approach of the social pedagogy is context specific and responsive to individual need, not a fixed one.

The Aims of Social Pedagogy

Holistic learning: the holistic learning reflects the aim of the well-being and happiness, it seems to be enhancing or contributing to the state of well-being. Holistic learning is more than that happened at school because it is a process of realization of the own potential for growth and learning that can happen at any stage that provides a learning opportunity (Ecclestone & Brunila, 2015). The holistic learning is the lifelong process that involves heads, hands, and heart. Social pedagogy supports to create the learning opportunity, so, that the people can know about their own potential and works to develop them.

Relationship: Pedagogic relationship is the centre of the above two aims. With the supportive relationship with the social pedagogy, the people feel that someone cares for him and have trust in him. This gives them the opportunity to have better relations with others. The pedagogic relationship is personal and professional at the same time.

Empowerment: Along with the relationship, empowerment is critical to ensure that the people have a sense of control over their life, have a feeling of involvement in a decision that affects them. The empowerment supports to have the feeling that the people have the ability to take their own responsibilities and learning, well-being and happiness and relationship with the community (Sears, 2004).

Positive experience: the social pedagogy should provide some positive experience to the individual. This positive experiencing power reinforces the individual to work for the above four aims.

The experts of the social pedagogy work with all age groups such as children, youth, and old age person. They worked in kindergarten, nurseries, children and youth service centre, play setting, children home and clubs of the youth. The worker of social pedagogy works in the service centre for the adults by interacting with the disadvantaged adults and communities such as substance users, ethnic minorities, homeless, imprisoned persons and unemployed and they also worked in the palliative care that supports the older person in a care centre or at home (Kamberelis, McGinley, & Welker, 2015). But, it is logical that the methods used for the social pedagogy in all, these are different depending upon their target groups. Therefore, if the social pedagogy deals with the homeless, youth, the practice will be different. This practice is as follows.

The homeless youth is mainly two types, short-term homelessness, and long-term homelessness. Short- term homelessness, youth stays on the roads, streets, with their friends or in emergency youth shelters and the return to their homes after two or three weeks or run away from their homes more than once in the short time period. The long-term homelessness means the youth leave their home for a longer time than a month and become street dependent or make their homes in parks, abounded buildings and under bridges. These types of youth require assistance to exit the homelessness to sort out the conflict between them and family (Khalifa, 2013). The practice or approach used to assist the homeless youth should be individualized and flexible. For everyone, the path of the independence is different and depending upon the different needs and desires at different ages. There are two methods of social pedagogy for the homeless youth.

The Practice of Social Pedagogy

Proactive family reconciliation: this method used for the short-term homelessness and focus on the counselling the youth and the parents or caretaker to manage the problems because of which the youth leave their homes. The purpose of the family reconciliation is to improve the relationship in the family that force the youth to come back to home in the most supportive environment (Khalifa, 2013). The family reconciliation is the best method because a maximum of the youth come back to their home through this method. It should be remembered that the family reconciliation is not always the best method because sometimes the environment of the home is unsafe for the youth.

Traditional housing and supportive service that are youth-centred: this type of the practice is used for the long-term homelessness and the youth under the age of 18. The services of housing, supportive system, and service of guidance are provided to them, the youth that cannot move to their homes. This practice helps the homeless youth to improve their skills and become an independent adult (Kitagawa, 2016). The case management through the individualization and the assessment of the needs of the homeless youth are the best way to meet the requirement of the needs of the homeless youth.

The research of SIR shows that the effective programs for both types of homelessness are based on youth development, positively, flexibility, relationship building, cultural competence and trauma-informed care.

Conclusion

The social pedagogy is the practice that supports to improve the relationship in society, holistic learning, empowerment, and so on. It helps the individual to provide well-being and happiness. This social pedagogic worker works for all age’s people and tries to improve their social living, relation and potentiate their skills for their state of well-being and happiness (Razack, 2009). They provide the holistic learning practice that will help to improve their learning skills and leads them in their growth way.

References

Békési, K. (2007). Social capital and policy‐making: taking theory into practice. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 15(1), 135-138.

Breslau, D. (2003). Rationalizing Strategy: Game Theory in Management Pedagogy and Practice.Social Analysis, 47(1).

Ecclestone, K. & Brunila, K. (2015). Governing emotionally vulnerable subjects and ‘therapisation’ of social justice. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 485-506.

Kamberelis, G., McGinley, W., & Welker, A. (2015). Literature Discussions as Mangles of Practice: Sociological Theories of Emergence and/in Dialogic Learning Events. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 3.

Khalifa, M. (2013). Creating Spaces for Urban Youth: The Emergence of Culturally Responsive (Hip-Hop) School Leadership and Pedagogy. Multicultural Learning And Teaching, 8(2).

Kitagawa, K. (2016). Situating preparedness education within public pedagogy. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 1-13.

Razack, N. (2009). Decolonizing the pedagogy and practice of international social work. International Social Work, 52(1), 9-21.

Rosendal Jensen, N. (2013). Social pedagogy in modern times. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 21, 43.

Sears, J. (2004). A Social Frontier for Curriculum Workers. Journal Of Curriculum And Pedagogy,1(1), 32-35.

Úcar, X. (2015). Social pedagogy in the UK: theory and practice. European Journal Of Social Work,19(2), 297-299.