Social pedagogy in children´s everyday life – supporting agency

A large part of most children’s childhood is about taking part in educational and leisure time activities together with other children across various contexts of childhood. However, children who are in out-of-home care do... [ view full abstract ]

A large part of most children’s childhood is about taking part in educational and leisure time activities together with other children across various contexts of childhood. However, children who are in out-of-home care do not always have easy access to these resources. Theoretically the paper draws on a German version of Critical Psychology and discusses how to understand social pedagogy in relation to the support of children’s conduct of everyday life. In general parents coordinate their children´s everyday lives, but for the case of children in out-of-home care, the responsibility of care is distributed between several professionals and institutions. The paper builds on two research projects that followed children in out-of-home care in their everyday lives. By conducting participatory observation and interviews the projects explored, how professionals work together in order to support children´s agency in communities of children in residential home, school and leisure time activities. The paper contributes to discussions of how to define and understand social pedagogy and argues that a central focus in social pedagogy should be to create possibilities of participation in society and to support children´s agency in their everyday life across different contexts. The paper concludes that for children in out-of-home care their possibilities of learning how to conduct everyday life is closely related to the ways professionals cooperate across contexts. That puts inter-professional cooperation at the core of social pedagogy.