Social pedagogy and its relevance for Scottish social welfare

• Social pedagogy is an academic and professional discipline, which seeks to effect individual and social change through broadly educational means.
• It does not offer a discrete approach or set of tools for practice but is a way of thinking, under which a range of different approaches might be situated
• Across Europe, some form of social pedagogy or social education provides the theoretical and disciplinary basis for direct work with people across the life course
• There is growing interest in social pedagogy in the UK; while initial interest focused on residential child care, its principles are increasingly recognised as being relevant across health,
social care and education settings
• Social pedagogy has a particular resonance for Scottish social welfare, where it chimes with Kilbrandon’s conception of social education, but also offers a suggestive framework within which to locate current policies
• Evaluations of social pedagogy projects suggest that social pedagogic ideas can boost practitioners’ confidence and give them a language through which to better describe what they do