Practical Social Pedagogy by Storø Jan

Author:Storø, Jan [Storø, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Social Work, Sociology, Marriage & Family, Children's Studies
ISBN: 9781447305385
Google: W7V_rX03WiMC
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2013-03-20T05:29:57+00:00

Personal competence

Many job adverts seeking people for positions with a social pedagogic orientation emphasise the importance of personal suitability. This notion is rarely explained. Being suited to a job implies having both personal and specific professional qualifications. Personal suitability can be understood as an element in what Skau (2005) calls personal competence. This is often understood as using oneself as a person when performing professional interventions. Skau (2005, p 59) describes it as ‘a unique combination of human qualities, characteristics and skills which we adjust and use in our work-related contexts’. She also points out that this particular type of competence is vital in order to be able to reach our targets with theoretical knowledge and specific professional skills.

The first answer to the question of what constitutes personal suitability must be that the person who has the job is very important in these professions. The personal factor is maybe more important here than in many other professions, because the work is done through relationships between people that are being played out in ordinary, everyday situations. Some of the personal aspects required in other professions are also important for social pedagogues. Roughly speaking, we can divide these into two different categories: what any serious employer demands from his employees; and what serious employers in the social pedagogic field demand. The first usually involves the qualities that are generally expected of employees, such as reliability, loyalty, specialist knowledge, willingness to work hard, being organised and so on. These are, of course, also important in social pedagogy-oriented jobs. Maybe they are even particularly important in such jobs, as the social pedagogue is also a model for his clients. You cannot work in an institution for young people and skive off work, or in child welfare services without loyalty to the fundamental idea of child welfare. Such social pedagogues would lack credibility. The other side of the notion of personal suitability is linked to the actual content of social pedagogic practice. My perspective is that the social pedagogue is his own most important tool. In which case, it is not unreasonable to subject the person who carries out the work to certain requirements, linked to the professional ideals for such work. Different workplaces will have different priorities in this respect.

As I have mentioned earlier, informed practice can be linked to reflection. Mathiesen (1999, p 67) ascertains that ‘a professional care worker ought to have the competency of reflecting in advance of acting in order to be able to act in an ethically correct way’. For his part, Schön (2001) is interested in ‘reflection-in-action’. Both these competencies are important in their own way. So, we can talk about general professional competence – that of a practising social pedagogue. However, this competence is not like that of a craftsman. Whereas the bricklayer learns to build a brick wall that is perpendicular to another and the carpenter learns to build a house with level floors, the social pedagogue learns to a far lesser degree exactly what he should be doing.

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