Lotte Junker Harbo, Ph.D., is assistant professor in continuing education and research, with specific focus on social pedagogy at VIA University College in Aarhus. In addition, she is an active member in different organizations and in a variety of editorial boards, i.e. in the Danish Association for Social Pedagogy, which runs the Danish journal Tidsskrift for So-cialpædagogik and the International Journal of Social Pedagogy. Mail: ljh@via.dk 

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Social pedagogy, evidence-based manuals, and gut feeling

 

Presentation:

In many countries, social pedagogical practice is increasingly expected to be evidence-based. This presentation focuses on what happens in situations, where social pedagogues deviate from an evidence-based manual. We will draw on Lotte’s recent research with social pedagogues using Aggression Replacement Training and their reasons for deviating from the manual they are meant to follow. Her research suggests that, in a social pedagogical understanding, the rela-tion between fidelity to evidence-based manuals and responding meaningfully to complex practice situations produces different problems. Social pedagogues handle these problems by activating social pedagogy in different ways, for in-stance by responding to their gut feeling.
Based on both our practical experiences as a social pedagogue and social worker and on recent research, linked to social pedagogical thinking, we explore the dilemmas that can emerge from deviations like these.