- Specific criteria for the education of disability pedagogues. This sets out specific
content for the education of disability pedagogues.
For now, I concentrate almost exclusively on theSection 3 Goals, which con-
tains specific criteria for the education of disability pedagogues. Disability peda-
gogy, I should add, is commonly referred to as a social pedagogic profession, but
involves some clinical work too. Although theFramework( 2005 ) explicitly refers
to social pedagogy, it also—and this is a bit confusing—refers to psychosocial
environmental rehabilitation. The latter designation broadly refers, but in unnec-
essarily complex language, to social pedagogic work.
I am especially interested in the social pedagogic aspects of theFramework’s( 2005 )
content. There are two reasons:first, my chapter is part of an international anthology on
comparative pedagogy; second, a distinguishing feature of disability pedagogy is its
anchorage in social pedagogy. A tentative definition of the discipline is therefore
appropriate. Following Natorp ( 1904 , p. 94), a founding thinker:
‘The social aspects of education, broadly understood, and the educational aspects of social
life constitute this science’[social pedagogy].In a stroke of genius, Natorp ( 1904 ) has spotted thesocial in the educationaland
theeducationalin thesocial. This might sound obvious. Yet the dichotomization of
the“social”and the“educational”into separate spheres has strong roots because
social care and schooling have often been regarded as separate functions. Yet for
Natorp ( 1904 , p. 94),‘The concept of social pedagogy recognises that the education
of the individual...is socially conditioned’. For all the discernment in Natorp’s
( 1904 ) work, his position is afinding, not a discovery. The educational and the
social spheres have always been interlocked, but this relationship has frequently
been overlooked (Stephens 2013 ).
Like other social scientific disciplines, social pedagogy has been used for benignand
malign aims: for example, promoting perceived collective efficacy among oppressed
groups (Freire 1996); and indoctrinating the Hitler Youth into Nazi ideology (Sünker
and Otto 1997 ). I often think of social pedagogy as a rose with many names. These
namesinclude“emancipatorypedagogy”and“criticalpedagogy”.Havingsaidthat,you
know social pedagogy when you see it, because it is a discipline always present in the
dance between the social and the pedagogic. The two are inseparable.
13.5 Norwegian Disability Pedagogy: The Political
Mandate
The preparation of pedagogues who will later help people who are disabled to
understand, in union and solidarity with them, that they can reach beyond the limits
of agency they bravelyfight is a prodigious task. I am reminded of Habermas’s
( 2005 , p. 56) conviction that,‘The concept of humanity obliges us to take up the
“we”-perspective from which we perceive one another as members of aninclusive
196 P. Stephens