Situated at the intersection between social work and education social pedagogy is an original
and dynamic academic and professional tradition. It can be found across most European countries
and shows great variety being closely connected to specific national and sometimes even
regional cultures and structures. Yet despite this diversity social pedagogy also has many
common features cross-nationally. The aim of the book is to illustrate this diversity via a
selection of case studies from Denmark France Germany Poland and Sweden. Although social
pedagogy is in many countries a profession that represents a sizeable workforce very little
has been written about it from a European perspective. Comparative literature tends to look at
social work whereby social pedagogy is obscured. But while there is a lack of comparative
social pedagogy literature interest in social pedagogy is growing. This is particularly so in
the United Kingdom where no social pedagogy tradition exists but policy developments point to
the emergence of a social pedagogy paradigm both in academia and in terms of careers. This book
aims to help fill the gap. Case studies deal with theoretical and practical aspects of social
pedagogy professional education fields of practice and research as well as links with other
academic and professional paradigms.
