DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN SOCIAL PEDAGOGY IN AUSTRIA: PERSPECTIVES FOR WORK WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

Abstract

This article traces the history of social pedagogy in Austria, which shows some differences from the German history of social pedagogy. In the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, the development of social pedagogy led to interesting approaches in the field of children’s residential care. During the National Socialist era, the emergence of social pedagogy was cut short. After the end of the Second World War, social pedagogy developed step by step into its currently established form, without ever reviving the thinking of the 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless, I would like to show how the basic concepts of that period offer some inspiration for work with children and young people today. Based on a single case example, I propose a specific approach to social pedagogy, one that seeks to enable educational processes by reflecting and using the opportunities offered by social environments conducive to education. This focuses less on working with and upon the child, and more on changing the relation between child and environment, the “child/‌environment nexus”.