As we tread carefully into this new year, still reeling from 2020, we may be tempted to put last year behind us and move on. But in ‘moving on’ we run the risk of losing some of the valuable learning that came with the battles and the pain of this unique year. Matters of social justice were made much clearer to more people in 2020 - inequalities rooted in centuries and decades past were brought into sharp, painful focus at a time when solidarity, co-operation and empathy were needed, perhaps more than ever, to keep societies, communities and people going and coping with a myriad of challenges.
While social pedagogy is undoubtedly concerned with what happens in everyday practice, it is equally concerned with how societal and institutional structures and systems contribute to or cause inequalities. Social pedagogues/social pedagogy practitioners and educators have a responsibility to make ourselves aware of and actively challenge political powers in the fight for social justice and equality. Come and join us in exploring how we can better understand and promote social justice in 2021 as individuals, groups and as a profession.
United by concern after reading and considering the wider implications of the article ‘English schools being banned from using anti-capitalist material in teaching’, and a desire to stimulate more thinking, debate and action in the social pedagogy community we have gathered together a small group of academics and experienced practitioners to help us start this new year with a webinar on social justice.
To whet your appetite we recommend this article from Ryynanen and Nivala (2018) that explores inequality as a social pedagogic question.
Happy New Year! May this be a year of more equality, because equality is better for everyone.
REGISTER TO THIS WEBINAR HERE
This webinar is free of charge, but we are kindly asking for donations. Your donation helps SPPA to stay alive. We suggest a donation of £5 but we will be very grateful to receive any amount. If you are struggling at the moment, no worries, you can still help us by spreading the voice and sharing the event on social media.
The funds received will be used to support the profession, organise more events, promote Social Pedagogy knowledge and practice and keep spreading the word in the UK and internationally
MAKE A DONATION HERE
Please also consider becoming a SPPA member to form part of the social pedagogy family and help shape Social Pedagogy with us.
THANK YOU!
Looking forward to seeing you!
If you have any questions, please email us at info@sppa-uk.org
Social justice: responding to social inequalities with social pedagogy
29th January 2021
13:00 Welcome
13:05 Prof. Claire Cameron
13:15 Lowis Charfe
13:30 Maria Claudia Santos Lopes de Oliveira
13:45 Cecile Remy
14:00 Breakout room themed discussions
14:30 Feedback
14:45 Actions
15:00 Close
Speakers
| Prof Claire Cameron – SPPA Patron |
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Claire Cameron is the UK’s first Professor of Social Pedagogy, and is based at Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Social Research Institute, University College London. Claire began her career in residential care and, after qualifying as a social worker in 1987, in social work until 1992. Since then she has been a researcher specialising in studies of the children’s workforce, early childhood care and education, looked after children and young people, care leavers, and families in areas of social deprivation.
She is particularly interested in the intersection of care and education and in the education of children in care and care leavers. Much of her work is cross-national and has a long standing interest in social pedagogy. She has been involved in studies of the potential for, and impact of, social pedagogy in the UK since 2000, and ran the Care Matters government funded pilot programme exploring social pedagogy in residential care (2008-2011). She developed and led the first UK MA Social Pedagogy and supervises PhD students in the field of social pedagogy. She co-edited (with Peter Moss) Social Pedagogy and Working with Children and Young People: Where Care and Education Meet (2011, JKP), one of the first English language volumes introducing social pedagogy. She was project manager of the Scaling up Social Pedagogy project behind SPPA (2016-2019) and is co-editor of the I
nternational Journal of Social Pedagogy.
| Maria Cláudia Santos Lopes de Oliveira |
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Maria Cláudia is an Associate Professor at the University of Brasilia, where she develops research projects in Psychology of Human Development in the course of life, with an emphasis on social development in the urban context, of schools and institutions of the rights guarantee system such as socio-educational care units. She currently coordinates the Laboratory of Cultural Psychology [LABMIS] and the Dialogical Psychology WG [ANPEPP].
Between 2015 and 2016, she carried out a post-doctoral project at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and University of Aalborg, Denmark. In 2009, she completed a Postdoctoral Internship in Psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, and before that, in Human Development at Clark University, USA (2005).
She edited the books “Psychology of human development processes: culture and education” (2016) and “Diversity and culture of peace at school: contributions from a sociocultural perspective” (2012). She is co-author of several works, such as “The science of human development: challenges for psychology and education” (2014) and “Teaching in Socioeducation” (2014).
Lowis is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire and joint Course Lead for the MA in Social Pedagogy Leadership. She has run various training sessions around social pedagogy for several Local Authority teams and third sector organisations. She is also the lead for the UK partner team in the Erasmus funded Massive Open On-Line Course (MOOC) project, Social Pedagogy In Europe. Headed by ThemPra, the project has developed a short on-line course looking at the role of social pedagogy across Europe.
Previously she worked as a qualified social worker in a Leaving Care Team, supporting young care leavers to live independently. Her first role was as a Youth Offending Team Officer for the Manchester YOT service. Because of her previous social work experience, she understands the link between social pedagogy and social work and feels excited about the developments within the UK to embed social pedagogy into direct practice.
Cecile is a social pedagogue working with young people in care, and as such she is always interested in the interaction between learning processes and social change. She expands on this in a blog:
https://www.mypedagogicalblog.com/
Cecile has experimented with forms of communal living -a very personal form of social pedagogy- and she is currently living in a housing co-operative in London. By living there, she is trying to create a different sense of community, to experience and work with the importance of group processes and to move away from individualistic thinking. Cecile carries some of those themes forward in her PhD, where she explores the attitudes and beliefs professionals working in children’s homes have of the young people they work with.
Cecile is also a SPPA trustee, she joined the Board in July 2021 and has since then been actively engaged in all SPPA matters, showing her passion for social pedagogy at all times.
