The Role of Social Pedagogy in a Digitalized Society

This article highlights and problematizes the social pedagogical knowledge domain as a resource in inclusion work that aims to increase opportunities to become active citizens in a digitalized society. Throughout history, people have concerned themselves with how people can live and work together in an inclusive society that encourages cooperative and productive bonds. This question is highly relevant in contemporary digitalized society, a society characterized by growing social differentiation and increasing individualisation. One, maybe obvious, solution is to provide people the opportunity to participate in various social communities, creating conditions for a more inclusive society. An inclusive society provides all citizens equal opportunities to education, housing, work, and consumer participation. When people are not provided these equal opportunities, society becomes exclusionary. And if an individual is excluded from one of these basic needs (e.g., the labour market), the opportunities to participate in other areas are also reduced. Research, political discussions, and educational assessments are increasingly questioning society's role with respect to inclusion. As a result, this article specifically questions how well placed social pedagogy is in light of the increasing pressures and challenges placed upon our clients, work context and models of practice by various types changes that are brought through increasing digitalization. The article begins with a brief overview of how to understand the modern society. It then moves into an examination of influential theoretical frameworks and concepts inclusion, identity and acknowledgement. From this foundation I proceed to scrutinize the origin ideas of social pedagogy and finally, I reflect on theoretical pathways for change that might be employed to address the current intimidations and challenges that digitalization has posed for social pedagogy, both in research and in practice