USA

Danish pedagogue Mette Christiansen leading on the Bachelor degree in Human Services at City University, New York reports successfully expanding the social pedagogic theme in her classes. She states, “’Social pedagogy’ rolls off the tongues of my students now.” She’s also just developed a graduate course, “Autism and Human Services” where she integrates social pedagogy.

The University of Arizona’s Daniel Schugerensky has launched a Social Pedagogy Association to bring together practitioners, academics, students and others to exchange experiences and to share knowledge and resources about social pedagogy theory, research and practice’. They’re hosting a major conference in 2018.

Finland

The Finnish Social Pedagogy Association runs an annual conference for around 200 students, staff and practitioners from across a wide range of services. Prof. Claire Cameron was the keynote speaker at the most recent event on 6^th April, where she was talking about ‘Dimensions of Social Pedagogic Relationships in Comparative Perspective’.

The University of Eastern Finland is shortly to advertise a ‘tenure track’ position in social pedagogy, with a focus on social and cultural sustainability.

They also run bachelor and masters programmes in Social Pedagogy, and universities of applied sciences run bachelor programmes in Social Services and in Community Education, both with Social Pedagogy modules and Creative Methods modules. Some of these are run as English language options and draw on British literature.

Vietnam

A major programme is underway to develop a new profession to work with children with special needs in schools. An Erasmus+ project led by Danish University College Zealand, with partners from the University of Gent, Belgium, the occupational model is part social pedagogue, part occupational therapist.

Serbia

A new bachelor programme in social pedagogy have recently been accredited at the University of Nis, as part of an EU Tempus programme with support from UCL, University College Zealand, Denmark, and University of Catania, Italy.

Cross-national

A new book is in production called ‘Social Pedagogies in Europe’ edited by Niels Rosendahl Jensen. This will profile social pedagogy in five national contexts including Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Denmark and will provide a state of the art in relation to theory and practice.

A cross national invitation only seminar is in preparation in Germany, called ‘Social pedagogy as a ‘Transnational Phenomenon’, with contributions from Scotland and Belgium. It will be held in Autumn 2017.

The Nordic Educational research association has a sub group called the Network for Social Pedagogy. Country and thematic specific papers are in preparation for a journal special issue.

In Vietnam a major programme is underway to develop a new profession to work with children with special needs in and outside schools. An Erasmus+ project led by Danish University College Zealand, with partners from the University of Gent, Belgium, Savonia University of Applied Science, Finland the occupational model is part social pedagogue, part inclusive education teacher. An attempt is being made to found the new profession on the Capability Approach (by Sen and Nussbaum), which empirically measures inequality in several co-existing substantial dimensions (health, education, practical reason, bodily integrity, length of life, freedom to have emotions, to belong, to play, to relate to nature and other species and finally personal decision making). In so doing, the new professional should be able to work with the social complexities in Vietnam and handle situations where several vulnerabilities intersect in the same individual, family or community.