What is the Social Pedagogue? - From theories to practice in Finnish ECEC settings

Did you know there is a role called "social pedagogue (varhaiskasvatukusen sosionomi)" exist in Finnish kindergarten? It is actually a new role and we, as future social pedagogues are also helping figure out how the role supposed to work in the kindergarten. As I am currently studying to become one, I will try to explain "what the social pedagogue is" in Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care, with also a little bit of the help of theories.

Finnish ECEC and actors

Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is carried out accordingly to the Act of Early Childhood Education and Care 540/2018 and National Core Curriculum for ECEC by the Finnish National Agency for Education mainly. Of course, the law can tell many important things and regulations in working in ECEC, but National Core Curriculum is the base and the guide for the workers in kindergarten. The content of National Core Curriculum includes from the regulations related to ECEC (law), important concepts and definitions, cooperation with guardians and other professionals to (special) support for the child. Unfortunately, this time I don't have time to talk about everything about Finnish ECEC, but I will explain some important points here, and later maybe mention some more which are particularly important for the role of social pedagogue. 
First of all, the mission of Finnish ECEC is "to promote children's holistic growth, development and learning in collaboration with their guardians (the Finnish National Agency for Education 2022, p. 11)", and also to promote equality, to prevent social exclusion and to strengthen participation among children (the Finnish National Agency for Education 2022). National Core Curriculum also shows us what the underlying values are in Finnish ECEC. They are: The intrinsic value of childhood, growth as a human being, rights of the child, equity, equality, and diversity, diversity of families and healthy and sustainable way of living. These values should be considered throughout the work in kindergarten. Additionally, National Core Curriculum has the guide which is especially useful when planning the activities for children, which has been mainly the responsibility of the teachers. For example, transversal competences work as objectives of the activities, and learning areas shows which areas to be covered in the activities.
Usually in Finnish ECEC center, there are mainly three different professions - teacher, social pedagogue and childcarer. In addition to these, of course there are other professions who helps child's development and daily tasks in kindergarten. Different professionals have different educational background and their role has a different focus. According to the law (the Act of Early Childhood Education and Care 540/2018), in each group, there should be one of each professions (a teacher, a social pedagogue, a childcarer) or two teachers and a childcarer eventually (currently still a social pedagogue can act as a teacher). Therefore it is natural to think each profession has specific skills, knowledge and responsibility they can bring into the team. So what is the social pedagogue's skills and responsibility? To find that out, let's take a look at the history and definition of social pedagogue.  

Theory of social pedagogy

According to Moss and Petrie (2019), the profession "social pedagogue" is not new especially in Europe -one could argue it is even wide spread discipline. However, this profession has been more visible in "unofficial" educational settings, such as child protection and youth work, in other words, outside of the school setting. They also mention the definitions of social pedagogy as a discipline. "Social pedagogy" literary include "social" and "education". Here, education (pedagogy) is in its broadest sense and holistic. Moss and Petrie (2019) introduce the German concept "Bildung" which resonate with what education means for social pedagogy. "Bildung" sees human being as an entity and they construct themselves into something in relation to society. Social pedagogy is interested in human as a social being, as human belonging to community and influenced by society, culture and politics and it takes an educational approach towards social problems (Moss & Petrie 2019). 
Social pedagogue uses their expert knowledge as well as their own experience to support human growth of people who are in different situations at different life courses. They support people's participation and agency in their community. (Moss & Petrie 2019)

The role of social pedagogue in kindergarten

Even though the discipline of social pedagogy has established and quite long history in social work in Europe, it hasn't been so common in Early Childhood Education. Besides as I mentioned, it is also a new role in Finnish ECEC, so in the courses for us, future social pedagogues, we have been discussing this topic a lot. In the lecture, Jalasmäki (2023) has mentioned what kinds of tasks and approaches has been identified and discussed as social pedagogue's responsibility in Finnish context by Nivala and Ryynänen (2019). According to them, the main tasks would be to support everyone's well-being and to prevent inequality (Nivala & Ryynänen 2019, cited in Jalasmäki 2023). It makes sense also based on the theories/ discipline of social pedagogy mentioned earlier. Since our background (social pedagogues in Finland) is also in social work as we study to become a social service provider as well, we could be an expert of children's right (including participation) and their agency, their well-being and growth as an individual as well as a member of community. At the same time, it is also important to prevent inequality, for example, by supporting those who have special needs. Our role could be especially important in this too because we should be familiar with other actors outside of ECEC center, such as neuvola and family center, which include professions such as nurses, midwives, psychologists and family therapists, and we should be able to connect families and children who need more support to proper services. This is also mentioned in the National Core Curriculum as cooperation (the Finnish National Agency for Education 2022). But how should we support well-being of the child and prevent inequality in kindergarten? Nivala and Ryynänen (2019) suggest four different principle for social pedagogical approaches : Functionality and creativity, promoting community, supporting agency and participation, and dialogical encounter (Nivala & Ryynänen 2019, cited in Jalasmäki 2023). These mean, in short, we should try to understand the child's point of view, hear them and respect them equally and use phenomenon-based and creative methods to achieve our tasks and of course our objectives -transversal competences (the Finnish National Agency for Education 2022). It is not like each of the professions (teachers, social pedagogues, childcarers and so on) are responsible for different transversal competence and learning areas -but rather, we take these social pedagogical approaches we talked about, in pedagogical activities and daily routine in kindergarten in general.

References

Finnish National Agency for Education. 2022. National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care 2022. 

Jalasmäki, H. 2023. Social pedagogical approach in ECEC. [Video lecture slides]. Held on 10 November. Laurea University of Applied Sciences.

Moss, P. & Petrie, P. 2019. Education and social pedagogy: What relationship? London Review of Education, 17 (3): 393–405.

The Act of Early Childhood Education and Care 540/2018. Accessed 23 November 2023. https://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/2018/en20180540.pdf