Abstract
The aim of this paper is to answer the question which value discourses have, from a historical standpoint, legitimized the meaning of social pedagogy as a science and as an educational help, and whether they are still relevant in present day. The methods are based on analysis, reflexion, and interpretation of the tradition of social pedagogical thinking, of relevant historical sources, and the bibliography focusing on the axiological aspect of social pedagogy.
The answer to the first part of the question is that historically, three legitimizing discourses came to be in social pedagogy: Adaptational, democratizational, and mobilizational, and currently we are witnessing an attempt to merge the democratizational tradition with critical reflexion. The answer to the second part of the question is that social pedagogy even in present day accentuates the tradition of communitarian thinking in social sciences and draws attention to the necessity of pursuing a society of good.
Social pedagogues accept that the key panhuman value of the communitarian vision of a good life is social recognition from which stems the experiencing of human dignity. In practicing social pedagogy it means the enforcement of such values as self-determination, equality, and solidarity - values which suppport social integration.
Axiological emphasis, in social pedagogy connected to human dignity and understanding, at the same time makes the expert understanding of help and objectivistic consideration of the clients' life situations problematic. The basis of social pedagogical help is not primarily adaptation and normalization, but a relationship founded on understanding, respect, and recognition.
While working with clients (both children and adults) the point is such a pedagogical aim that incites the will to assume resopnsibility ("help to self-help") for one's own life.