This document compares the role of theory in social pedagogy and disability research. It finds that both fields are practice-oriented but debates exist around the role of theoretical perspectives. A review found disability research increasingly uses theoretical perspectives but also a new non-theoretical "experience-near" perspective prioritizing personal experiences of people with disabilities. While this perspective has value, relying only on experience risks missing larger social and historical factors. Theoritical perspectives that combine experience and analysis are important to avoid certain biases and allow comparisons across contexts.

1. Anders Gustavsson
The role of theory in social pedagogy
and disability research
A comparison between two practice-oriented,
multi-disciplinary knowledge fields
Social pedagogy has a long history as a multi-disciplinary know-
ledge field, first of all in Germany but also in Eastern Europe and
the Nordic countries. Usually, social pedagogy has been regarded as
a special branch either of education or social work. Nevertheless,
it is possible to identify as a rather independent knowledge field,
possibly on its way towards the status as an independent discipline
(see e.g. Hämäläinen above).
An important characteristic of social pedagogy is its practice-
orientation. However, this is also a characteristic of several estab-
1
lished, academic disciplines, like education/pedagogy and social
work, as pointed out by Jenner (above). Education/pedagogy can
be defined, he argues, in three different dimensions: as an academic
discipline, as a major subject of study for certain professional and
as a practical activity. In spite of the practice-orientation of the two
important last dimensions, it is often argued that the core dimen-
sion of social pedagogy is its special, theoretical perspective (cf.
1
The discipline is called “Pedagogik” in Swedish and other Scandinavian
languages but pedagogik is often translated to English by Education and
therefore I use the double expression education/pedagogy, when I refer to the
discipline.
164

2. Hämäläinen above). This raises two important questions: What is
the role of theory in social pedagogy? And, what special theoretical
perspectives are frequent?
The purpose of this chapter is to review the theoretical or non-
theoretical approaches presented at the Stockholm symposium on
Perspectives and Theory in Social Pedagogy, documented as chap-
ters in this report. As a point of departure I have chosen another
review of the role of theory in a closely related practice-oriented
2
knowledge field, namely disability/handicap research . To some
extent these fields are overlapping (see Hegstrup, Lauritzen, above),
but they also focus on different phenomena. Of special interest
here is the fact that disability/handicap research as a knowledge
field has some interesting similarities with social pedagogy. Both
can be defined both in practical and theoretical dimensions. The
theoretical concept of handicap, that plays a central role in the
disability/handicap research in the Scandinavian countries, gets
its specific meaning in an applied situation, where a person with a
certain functional disability encounters either environmental obsta-
cles or support with the consequences that a handicap may, or may
not, emerge. There is also an on-going academic debate whether
disability/handicap research is to be regarded as an independent
discipline or not. In Linköping, “handikappvetenskap”— which
literally means disability/handicap science — did receive the status
of an independent, academic discipline in 1996. In Great Britain,
and in the USA, disability studies also have been established as an
independent discipline focusing on the cultural, philosophical and
historical foundations of disability. All these similarities make it
interesting to compare the role of theory in social pedagogy and
disability/handicap research.
2
I use the double expression, disability/handicap, to indicate that the Scandina-
vian expression is “handikappforskning”, with a special Scandinavian meaning
in the concept of handicap, but the English translation given is often disability
research.
165

3. The ‘theoretical temperature’ of disability research
In a key-note speech at the annual conference of the Nordic Net-
work on Disability Research in Copenhagen 2001, I presented a
reviewed of a number of recent social science studies in disability/
handicap with a special focus on the role of theory. An important
point of departure for this review, in turn, was an interesting discov-
ery made in a similar review a little more than 10 years earlier.
In 1990, I was invited together with professor Mårten Söder
(Gustavsson & Söder 1990) by FUB (The Swedish Association for
Persons with Intellectual Disabilities), to review and comment on
the current social research concerning people with intellectual dis-
3
abilities . One of the most striking results of this review was that
a majority of the studies lacked a theoretical perspective and theo-
retical analyses. The dominating perspective in research concerning
people with intellectual disabilities at the time was a non-theoretical
perspective, that we called the reformer’s perspective. This perspective
understands the researcher’s role as that of a controller of on-going
reforms and programs. In the Copenhagen review of 2001, I wanted
to, so to speak, “take the theoretical temperature” of current social
science disability research.
The Copenhagen review was based on articles published in the
Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research (of 2000 and 2001), the
British journal “Disability & Society ” (of the same period) and the
French journal “Handicap ” (also of the same period). In addition
to this I also included eight doctoral dissertations published during
the years 2000 and 2001 in Sweden and Norway (two in education,
one in special education, two in psychology, two in sociology and
one in social work).
3
Thus, the review of 1990 covered only research on intellectual disability, while
the review of 2001 covered research on all kinds of disabilities. Even if there,
of course, are differences between these fields, similarities are likely to domi-
nate.
166

4. Two interesting lines of development
The comparison between the reviews of 1990 and 2001, first of all,
showed that theoretical perspectives had become more frequent in
the disability/handicap research published in the beginning of the
new millennium. However, a second, striking observation was the
appearance of a new, and also quite frequent, non-theoretical per-
spective. A common characteristic of this perspective was that the
authors argued in different ways for the value of personal experi-
ences of people with disabilities in disability research. Drawing on
a distinction made by the North American anthropologist Clifford
Geertz (1993) this position can described as an argument for experi-
ence-near perspectives as opposed to experience-distant perspectives.
Experience-near vs. experience-distant perspectives
Geertz makes his distinction in the context of the history of
anthropology and more precisely in relation to the arguments of
many anthropologists in favor of a specific sensitivity towards the
informants’ own perspectives. This discussion has a special back-
ground in the discipline of anthropology as the scientific study of
foreign cultures and foreign peoples. However, my point here is that
the anthropological discussion also has relevance for many other
disciplines, studying foreign experiences and conditions in our
cultures. This comparison is, I would argue, especially relevant for
disability/handicap research and social pedagogy, where researchers
very often study environments and conditions of everyday life, that
they, themselves, are not very familiar with.
During the first phase of the history of anthropology, the
so-called colonial anthropology, studies of foreign cultures were
characterized by an extreme ethnocentrism. Western cultures were
used as the frame of reference, with a privileged place at the top of
a civilization scale and foreign cultures were plotted out as more
or less distant from this ideal. However, after the breakthroughs
of Boa’s and Malinowski’s works, anthropologists more and more
have tended to define their discipline as the study of other peoples’
cultures and experiences from their own perspective. Different
researchers use different dichotomies to describe their position:
167

5. ‘inside’ versus ‘outside’, or ‘first person’ versus ‘third person’ descrip-
tions; ‘phenomenological’ versus ‘objectivist’, or ‘cognitive’ versus
‘behavioral’ theories; or, perhaps most commonly ‘emic’ versus ‘etic’
analyses. Geertz’s own distinction is experience-near and experience-
distant concepts—a pair of concepts originally borrowed from the
psychoanalyst, Heinz Kohut.
An experience-distant perspective, Geertz writes, is one that is
used, for example, by an analyst, an experimenter, an ethnographer,
even a priest or an ideologist to forward their scientific, philosophi-
cal or other kinds of theoretical aims. ‘Love’ is an experience-near
concept, ‘object cathexis’ is an experience-distant one. Clearly,
Geertz adds, the matter is one of degree, not polar opposition—
‘fear’ is experience-nearer that ‘phobia’ and ‘phobia’ is experience-
nearer than ‘egodyssyntonic’ (Ibid 1993).
In short, an experience-distant perspective mainly is a theoreti-
cal perspective and it gets its specific meaning in studies of other
people’s experiences, where the researcher analyzes the experiences
and thus distances him/herself from the informant’s special perspec-
tive and way of expression. It should be added, that Geertz himself,
argues for a combination or a dialectics between experience-near
and theoretical, experience-distant perspective, when studying for-
eign cultures and foreign experiences. One could say that he argues
for both in a dialectical, interpretative framework.
The celebration of experience-near perspectives in
British Disability Studies
As indicated above, on of the most striking discoveries in the
Copenhagen review was the appearance of the new non-theoretical
perspective in disability/handicap research. A few examples of this
perspective could be found in the Scandinavian publications but the
most elaborated expressions of this perspective were found in the
articles published by British disability studies researchers.
The interest in personal experiences of disability is not difficult
to understand. Generally, knowledge about disability has been for-
mulated from the perspectives of professionals and experts. This has
been highlighted especially in the British disability studies tradition,
168

6. where influential researchers with a personal experience of disability
have articulated a powerful critique concerning the earlier lack of
interest in the experiences of people with disabilities. It has, for
example, even been argued that disability research to some extent
has contributed to the existing oppression and marginalization
of people with disabilities in non-disabled society and thus also
silenced the voices of people with first hand knowledge of what it
means to live with a disability.
In this context, the recently proposed model of an experience-
near perspective presented by John Swain and Sally French (2000)
can be seen as a radical alternative to traditional disability research.
They present, what they call, a new model for understanding dis-
ability based on disabled people’s own positive experiences, called
“the affirmative model”:
In this paper we argue that a new model of disability is emerging
within the literature by disabled people and within disability cul-
ture, expressed most clearly by the Disability Arts Movement. For the
purpose of discussion we call it the affirmative model. It is essentially
a non-tragic view of disability and impairment which encompasses
positive social identities, both individual and collective, for disabled
people grounded in the benefits of lifestyle and life experience of
being impaired and disabled. This view has arisen in direct oppo-
sition to the dominant personal tragedy model of disability and
impairment, and builds on the liberatory imperative of the social
model (Swain & French 2000, p. 569).
The first, and most obvious, expression of the experience-near per-
spective in this article is the idea that research should be based on
personal experiences of disabled people and that such experiences
have a special validity in illuminating what it means to live with a
disability—experiences that tend to be forgotten by non-disabled
researchers. A Malaysian woman with a visual impairment, who was
cited by Swain and French, for instance, introduced an unusually
positive way of understanding her disability in telling how it had
separated her from a poor and neglectful family and sent her to a
good school at the age of five. She stated:
169

7. I got a better education than any of them [brothers and sisters] and
much better health care too. We had regular inoculations and regular
medical and dental checks (Swain & French 2000, p. 574).
Experiences of being impaired may also give disabled people a
heightened understanding of the oppressions other people endure.
French found, for instance, that visually impaired physiotherapists
she interviewed could find such advantages in their own profes-
sional work.
Secondly — and perhaps most important — the experience-near
perspective described in the article of Swain and French is character-
ized by the priority attributed to experiences of disabled people in
the analysis of how disability should be understood. Theory, they
argue, only plays a secondary role. Concluding, the authors write
that theories are rarely explicit in the validation of experiences of
disabled people but often explicit in invalidation of such experi-
ences. Therefore experiences should be allowed to speak for them-
selves. “Quintessentially, the affirmative model is held by disabled
people about disabled people. Its theoretical significance can also
only be developed by disabled people who are ‘proud, angry and
strong’ in resisting the tyranny of the personal tragedy model of
disability and impairment” (Swain & French 2000, p. 581).
In spite of the understandable and important aim of the affirma-
tive model, the lack of theoretical perspective and analysis also
creates problems similar to those of the reformer’s perspective. In
anthropology, Geertz has shown how experience-near perspectives
can be combined with theoretical analysis in the framework of an
4
interpretative approach .
The other non-theoretical perspectives in
disability/handicap research
The other non-theoretical perspective that dominated disability/
handicap research in the review of 1990, but was less frequent in
2001, was the reformer’s perspective. As indicated above, this per-
spective is characterized by an underlying normative and techno-
4
This approach has been discussed more in detail in Gustavsson (2001).
170

8. logical agenda. Carrying out programs of, for example, integration
or empowerment, these goals are understood as the self-evident and
in no need of further problematization. Thus, the first object of
disability/handicap research—from this perspective—is to evaluate
if reforms and programs have worked or not. Bogdan and Taylor
(1988), refers to this perspective as “the does-it-work-approach”. In
the review of 1990, I interpreted the dominance of this perspective
as a typical expression of a research tradition developed in a prac-
tice-oriented field. In the 1970s and 80s, the disability/handicap
research agenda in the Scandinavian and several other western
countries was, to a large extent, set by politicians and professionals
engaged in reforms towards integration and normalization. Fur-
thermore, disability/handicap research, at least in Scandinavia, at
the time engaged many new researchers with an earlier experience
from the disability services and a very limited experience of theo-
retical work.
As we have seen in the previous chapters of this book, neither
the reformer’s practice-oriented perspective nor the experience-near
perspectives were represented in the Stockholm discussion on per-
spectives and theory in social pedagogy. Before commenting further
on that, let me say something about the strong development of
theoretical perspectives in disability/handicap research during the
1990s.
The call for theoretical, experience-distant perspectives
In the review of 1990, Söder and I pointed to the dangers of the
reformer’s perspective. Political agendas and goals are often caught
in current ideologies and problems. History proves that such ide-
ologies ar far from objective. On the contrary, they tend to reflect
the socio-centrism of its time. Theoretical analysis is an attempt to
transcend current ways of thinking in order to highlight important
aspects that are hidden in, for instance, the reformer’s perspectives.
Another advantage of theoretical analysis is that it makes compari-
sons possible between experiences from different times and socie-
ties.
171

9. Similar dangers are obviously linked to pure experience-near
perspectives of the type suggested by Swaing and French. Here,
the socio-centrism of the reformers’ respective is replaced by the
ethno-centrism of researchers with personal experiences of disabil-
ity engaged in a collective struggle against existing oppression in a
society designed for non-disabled people. However legitimate this
struggle might be, it risks to catch the engaged researcher in an
etno-centrism if he or she does not use theoretical analysis and thus
refects over and clarifies his or her own perspective in a way that
makes it transparent for other researchers in the same field.
Many other disability/handicap researchers have also argued for
theoretical perspectives. In disability studies, Mike Oliver (1999)
has, for instance, pointed to the importance of theory, stressing that
only theory allows the researcher to go beyond individual experi-
ence, which, in turn, is necessary in order to discover and under-
stand the influence of oppressive social structures. Providing faithful
accounts of individual experiences is never enough, he argues. In
the journal of Disability & Society researchers like, Llewellyn and
Hogan (2000) have also pointed to the value of analyzing research
results in relation to the so-called social and medical models or
theories like systems analysis and transactional analysis.
The social model seems to be the single most frequently used
theoretical, or experience-distant, perspective in the review of 2001,
first of all represented in the journal Disability & Society (see e.g.
Beckett & Wrighton 2000; Davis 2000; Llewellyn and Hogan
2000; Dowling and Dolan 2001; Goodley 2001). Even if the sup-
porters of this model usually stress its foundations on experiences
of people with disabilities, the social model is first of all an analyti-
cal perspective based on a specific theory of society. In the social
model disability is not explained from impairment but from social
organization.
This model presents an individual, who is unable to walk, not as
being disabled because he or she is unable to walk, but because
society does not accommodate his or her inability to walk. [---] The
individual is being disabled, not by their impairment, but by the
failure of society to take account of and organize around difference
(Dowling & Dolan 2000, p. 23).
172

10. A paper by John M. Davis, Disability Studies as Ethnographic
Research and text: research strategies and roles for promoting social
change? (2000) provides us with a few more characteristics of this
perspective.
The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPAIS,
1976) argued after Paul Hunt (1996) and Vic Finkelstein (1975), that
disability should be seen as “caused by contemporary social organiza-
tion”. In Britain, this has led to the call for change in the way society
is structured primarily in the area of rights and citizenship. It has
been powerfully employed as a banner under which disabled people
and others can unite to fight off their oppressors. Specifically, in the
research arena, Barnes (1996) has employed this perspective as a basis
from which to call on academics to choose which side of the bar-
ricade they are on (Davis 2000, p. 195).
This stress on the need for changes in the societal structures is an
important characteristic of the social model and in Oliver’s version
of the social model this implies a basically materialistic perspective.
I will come back to this in my discussion of essentialism, below.
The second dimension
The discovery, in the Copenhagen review, of the emergence of theo-
retical perspectives in disability/handicap research raised another
interesting question concerning where the focus of analysis was
to be found in the growing number of theoretical perspectives. It
should first be said that the theoretical approaches showed a great
variety. A very interesting observation, however, was that the focus
of an adopted perspective often seemed to have a specific kind of
influence on the results of the study. Studies of one and the same
phenomenon, like for example dyslexia or inclusive schools, from
perspectives with different theoretical foci often seemed to produce
results that were in line with the given focus. The crucial point
here seemed to be that a specific theoretical focus tended to assume
what was essential to study in relation to disability/handicap. Two
main types of foci could be distinguished: One focus on the char-
acteristics of individuals with a specific disability, and another focus
on the environment where disability/handicap was supposed to be
173

11. produced. What made the perspectives and their foci so influential
seemed to be that they often were based on essentialist assumptions,
i.e. assumptions about an essential analytical level—which could be
for instance the dysfunctional cognitive structures of an individual
or the basically, oppressive social structures of a society—where the
disability/handicap best could be understood.
In a review of the Norwegian program for Special Education
research 1994 – 1999, Söder (2000) has discussed a similar kind of
theoretical essentialism. He talked about individual essentialism and
contextual essentialism, the first linked to — what he called — the
clinical model and the second to the social model.
In the same way as individual characteristics in the clinical model are
made “essential”, the segregating context here (in the social model)
is “the essential”, i.e. what explains the emergence of the problems
(Söder 2000, pp. 26–27, my translation).
Söder illustrates what he means by contextual essentialism by refer-
ring to the social model
5
As indicated above, the original idea of this model or theory , as
expressed for instance by Oliver (1999), is that materialistic, social
structures produce disability and consequently also the oppression
that disabled people are exposed to.
In the social model a sharp distinction is made between “impairment”
on the one hand and “disability” on the other. The former has to do
with the body. But the consequences of impairment are, accord-
ing to the social model, defined by the social context. Impairment
becomes disability as a result of the barriers and oppression in the
social context. But these mechanisms cannot be reduced to “culture”
or “social meanings”. They are embedded in the materialistic structure
of society. Oliver makes a point of not being a social constructionist,
but a “creationist”. Everyday life conditions of people with disabilities
are not the results of the representations and the attitudes of other
people, but a creation of the capitalist order of production that, in vari-
ous ways, marginalizes and oppresses different groups, among others,
5
A later version of the social model is less essentialist and more constructionist,
stressing the production of social meanings and discourses of disability (Davis
2000).
174

12. people with disabilities (Söder 1999, pp. 25–26, my translation and
my italics).
From this perspective, improvements in the everyday life conditions
of disabled people demand changes in the basic social structures
and so does the understanding of disabled people’s experiences, for
instance, in research.
A problem with individual and contextual essentialism, Söder
argues, is that these perspectives tend to essentialize only one side
of the handicap and exclude others and, as a consequence of this,
risks to be caught in a vicious circle:
As we have seen, the different projects [of Norwegian special educa-
tional research, that Söder reviewed] realize both the clinical and the
contextual perspectives. In both cases — one could say — for better
and for worse. Sometimes individual essentialism becomes a strait-
waistcoat that makes it difficult to discover the social mechanisms
that produce the problems of pupils, on other occasions, it provides
a good basis for interventions. The perspective of contextual essen-
tialism can sometimes end up in an almost circular reasoning, where
the researcher only confirms his or her points of departure, when
working from his or her own perspective (Söder 1999, p. 32, my
translation).
In contrast to these two types of rather one-eyed analyses, in the
Copenhagen review, I also found a few interesting studies character-
ized by a multi-level, constructionist approach. Here, the researchers’
perspectives were not founded on an assumption about a primordial
focus or analytical level. On the contrary, analysis included both the
individual and the contextual levels looking for the most important
empirical patterns in order to let them decide what was the most
productive analytical focus of the specific study. The theoretical
openness and empirical sensitivity of these studies were a striking
characteristic.
Söder too, in his report on Norwegian special educational
research, identified an alternative to theoretical essentialism. He
calls this alternative ‘the relative perspective’ drawing on, what
in The Scandinavian countries is called, ‘the relative definition of
handicap’.
175

13. One way of phrasing this is to say that these projects [adopting a rela-
tive perspective] take the relative definition of handicap seriously. It
is impossible to understand the processes producing disability—and
consequently exclusion and discrimination — without studying the
interaction between the individuals and the context. In order to
understand this interaction it is necessary not to lock oneself into the
idea that certain individuals have certain shortcomings or problems
and that these problems are to be focused, or that one beforehand
has decided that the context has certain characteristics. Such projects
demand certain openness towards what is going on; a sort of respect-
ful approach to a reality where competent and reflective persons act
and create the order we want to study (Söder 1999, p. 33).
It should be noted that the essentialist perspectives and their
assumptions about the most productive analytical level were not
necessarily founded on the researchers’ intention to maintain a pri-
mordial, basic level of analyzing disability/handicap. On the con-
trary, most essentialist studies included comments from the authors
about the importance of analyses also on other levels. However,
these programmatic statements seldom seem to influence the actual
analysis carried out. Thus, the essentialist character of these studies
most often remained implicit.
In my review of disability/handicap research of 2001, I found a
few examples of empirically sensitive, multi-level theoretical analy-
ses. However, most of the theoretical perspectives that had emerged
showed essentialist characteristics. Some examples of essentialism
were easy to categorize as individual or contextual. Others how-
ever, like discursive essentialism and cultural essentialism, seemed
to include both individual and contextual level in specific analytical
mixtures, but were still regarded as essentialist in the sense that they
tended to explain everything important in terms of a primordial
theoretical perspective.
Summing up the role of theory in current
disability/handicap research
Schematically, the perspectives and foci of analysis identified in the
reviews of the disability/handicap research are illustrated in figure 1.
Here, theoretical and non-theoretical perspectives are found on the
176

14. vertical axis and foci of analysis on the horizontal axis. The affirma-
tive model, discussed above, is a typical example of an experience-
near perspective with a contextual focus. In my Copenhagen review,
I did not find any distinct illustrations of experience-near perspec-
tives with an individual focus. However, life history approaches
without theoretical analysis, like for instance, I’ve seen it all, (Edger-
ton & Gaston 1991) can be regarded an example of this category of
studies. In the examples I found of the reformer’s perspective, the
distinction between individual and contextual foci was often blurred
and unclear. Often this seemed to be a result precisely of the lack
of theoretical analysis. Identifications of multi-level analyses among
the non-theoretical publications were impossible. In figure 1, I have
also noted the most frequent subcategories of theoretical perspective
that I found in the review of disability/handicap research of 2001.
Focus of analysis
The individual The context Multi-level
Perspective
Non-theoretical Program effectiveness analyzed on
reformer’s perspective individual level and/or contextual level
Non-theoretical (Life history) The Affirmation
experience-near perspective model
Theoretical, experience-
distant perspective, like e.g. Individual essentialism Contextual Multi-level
• Medical-psychological essentialism analysis
• Social structural
• Discursive
• Cultural
Figure 1. Perspectives and foci of analysis in the Copenhagen review of disability/
handicap research
When we try to understand the described development in disability/
handicap research towards individual or contextual essentialisms, it
should be noted that faithfulness to specific theoretical frames or
schools, in the academies, often receives strong appreciation for
its theoretical depth, coherence and contribution to cumulative
knowledge within the particular theoretical framework. This is
probably also one reason why this development of essentialist theo-
177

15. retical perspectives has continued without any strong objections.
And it is also important to stress that these kinds of studies often
contribute with important, and productive knowledge that can be
of value both in practice and in the development of the specific
theoretical perspectives. However, at the same time it is clear that
there is an equally strong need for, what I have called multi-level,
interactionist research. Holistic understanding — and what is per-
haps more important, effective practice-interventions — demand
multi-level studies that help us discover which analytical levels
that best can help us understand a particular phenomenon and its
manifestations in everyday life. If one understands a very complex
phenomenon like handicap in a narrow theoretical framework one
risks to fall into a reductionism where some basic characteristics
of the phenomenon are forgotten or misunderstood. Without the
empirical sensitivity and the theoretical openness of such studies
effective interventions are impossible to carry out. As Söder (1999)
has stated, it is also important to point out that true realizations of
the relative handicap perspective demands multi-level, interactionist
approaches in disability/handicap research.
Social pedagogy—a practice-oriented knowledge field
without practice research
I striking observation, in the comparison between publications in
disability/handicap research and social pedagogy, is the fact that
social pedagogical research, at least in the Nordic countries, does
not seem to present any practice-oriented research traditions similar
to the reformer’s perspective in disability/handicap research. This is
true for the presentations at the Stockholm symposium as well as
for other Nordic social pedagogical studies that I know of. The lack
of such non-theoretical perspectives in social pedagogy is even more
puzzling given the fact that social pedagogy — as indicated in the
beginning of this chapter — represents a typical practice-oriented
knowledge field. How can we understand that social pedagogues,
who have taken up research during the last 10 – 15 years, have not
highlighted on-going projects or been engaged in evaluations in the
same way as Nordic disability/handicap researchers have been?
178

16. … and a client-centered approach without experience-near
perspectives
Given the fact, that social pedagogy in practice is focusing so clearly
on client perspectives and mobilization, it is also very surprising
that experience-near perspectives play a so limited role in social ped-
agogical research. One would have expected that social pedagogy
would be in the forefront in using such perspectives. I have found
no signs, for instance, of the voice-giving programs that have been
so extensively discussed in the field of disability/handicap. Social
pedagogues could be expected to try to give voice to marginalized
or excluded people. As shown in the chapters of this book, and in
most other current Nordic social pedagogical studies, the research-
ers’ voice is dominating the publications in a rather traditional
way.
This finding comes as a special surprise to researchers, as myself,
who have been trained in the Stockholm social pedagogical tradi-
tion inspired by Arne Trankell in the late 1960s and 70s. Trankell’s
book, Kvarteret Flisan (The Block Flisan, 1973), describing a herme-
neutical approach to a study of neighborhood protests against Finn-
ish gypsies in a suburb of Stockholm, was written as something of
a manifest for the use of insiders’ perspectives in social pedagogical
research. It should be added that Trankell advocated for a dialectical
approach, similar to that of Geertz, mentioned above (Gustavsson
2001). However, one of the main points in Trankell’s hermeneutical
program still was to highlight the importance of the special per-
spectives of marginalized and excluded people. No similar examples
were presented at the Stockholm symposium.
Two main types of theoretical perspectives in social pedagogy
The presence of theoretical perspectives and theoretical analyses was
obvious at the Stockholm symposium and this is also illustrated in
the chapters of this book. Also other social pedagogical publica-
tions confirm that this knowledge field is strongly theory-oriented.
However, in order to understand what this means, it is important to
observe that a significant number of the published social pedagogi-
cal studies have adopted a very special theoretical perspective. What
179

17. is most striking in these studies is that the subject matter is not
social pedagogical practices but the discipline or knowledge field of
social pedagogy itself. Good examples of this can be found in the
chapters by Eriksson & Markström, Hämäläinen, Jenner, Hegstrup.
Lauritzen, Mikser and Kraav. As a consequence of this focus on
disciplinary issues—at least this is my interpretation—social peda-
gogues show an unusual interest in philosophical, meta-theoretical
perspectives. Typically, the development of social pedagogy in differ-
ent universities and different countries is discussed in the theoretical
frames of epistemology or theory of science. In the analyses of the
specific kind of knowledge found in social pedagogical, philosophy
of education/pedagogy also plays a central role.
As consequence, social pedagogy, to a large extent, appears as a
theoretical knowledge field, closely linked to a practice, but with a
very limited interest in this practice. At least, this is the impression
in current, Nordic social pedagogical publications. However, there
is also another line of social pedagogical research, where theoretical
perspectives are used to analyze empirical data of on-going social
pedagogical interventions or mobilization projects. In this book,
the chapters by Hermansson and Röpelinen most typically illustrate
this type of perspective. Here, I have chosen to comment, first of
all, on Hermansson’s research as it is an interesting example of the
multi-level analysis described above.
What Hermansson discusses is a new form of social mobilization
of special interest in today’s society, namely social economy. A large
part of Hermansson’s chapter is taken up by the presentation of a
day-care project for dogs run by people with intellectual disabili-
ties, indicating that social economy can be a means to social and
societal inclusion. As Hermansson’s presentation at the symposium
is a summary of his earlier, more extensive, publications (see e.g.
Hermansson 2000), I have been forced also to draw a little also on
this text in order to be able to illustrate his multi-level perspective.
Social economy is often related to the so-called ‘third sector’,
i.e. a sector between the public and the private sector in late
modern, western societies. At the core of this sector we find social
co-operatives organizing people in non-profit activities, with a
special emphasis on democratic participation of all members of
180

18. the organizations. At a societal level of analysis, social economy is
understood in the frameworks of disciplines like national economy,
political science and social policy. Here, issues concerning the devel-
opment of democracy in late modern societies like Sweden are in
focus. However, an organizational level of social economy is equally
important. In his chapter, Hermansson, describes, for example, how
social co-operatives can be regarded as an alternative to traditional
disability service organizations. Furthermore, he describes how
the pedagogical aspects of the organization of the daycare activ-
ity of Beateberg, for instance, the specific relationships developed
between supervisors and disabled members of the co-operative.
Finally, Hermansson’s analysis also highlights the importance of
social economy for the individuals involved in the co-operative.
Here, empowerment is used as an umbrella concept to point out
what it means to be a member of the social co-operative in terms of
increased self-esteem, self-confidence and opportunities for a mean-
ingful working-life for people who, usually, are excluded from the
labor-market.
The interactionist, multi-level approach in Hermansson’s discus-
sion of social economy is expressed in the fact that none of the
phenomena, or a separate level of analysis, are regarded as basic
or essential for the outcome. On the contrary, societal, organiza-
tional and individual phenomena interact in a complex way and
one phenomenon cannot be understood without also taking the
others into account. Thus, the development of alternative forms of
support for disabled people is, for example, related to the mobiliza-
tion of individuals with different competencies, as well as to the
development of the special kind of social ties, which characterize
social co-operatives in a social economy. Hermansson’s discussion
of social economy comes very close to what I, above, described as a
interactionist, multi-level, analytical perspective.
181

19. Summing up the role of theory in current social pedagogical
research
In order to be able to compare the roles of theory in social pedagog-
ical research and disability/handicap research, I have summed up
my analysis of the papers presented at the Stockholm symposium
in figure 2, which can be compared with figure 1 above.
Focus of analysis
The individual The context Multi-level Philosophical
Perspective Meta-level
Non-theoretical
reformer’s perspective
Non-theoretical
experience-near perspective
Theoretical, experience-
distant perspective, like e.g. Epistemological
• Medical-psychological Multi-level Theory of
• Social structural analysis science
• Discursive Philosophy of
• Cultural pedagogy
• Disciplinary
Figure 2. Perspectives and foci of analysis in social pedagogical research.
In social pedagogy, the rows for the non-theoretical reformer’s and
experience-near perspectives are blank. So are also the columns
representing individual and contextual essentialisms. Our first gen-
eral observation is that social pedagogical research perspectives, as
they were represented at the Stockholm symposium, are more uni-
form than perspectives are in the sister field of disability/handicap
research. And this uniformity first of all means a dominance of a
philosophical, meta-level focus and a few examples of multi-level
analyses. How could this picture be understood?
Let us start with the strong interest in philosophical, meta-level
analyses. One way of understanding this dominance seems to be
that social pedagogy raises basic philosophical, meta-questions that
are not raised in the same way in all disciplines or knowledge fields.
I am thinking of normative and ethical questions concerning the
182

20. assumptions for intervening into other people’s lives in order to help
them find better everyday life conditions. Social pedagogues are
faced with issues like: How to handle obvious inequalities between
people? Do social pedagogues have the right to try to influence
other people’s life courses? If we do, can everybody be ‘saved’? And
how can we go on with our work when our good intentions fail?
Another line of interpretation refers to the professional history
of social pedagogues and the history of social pedagogical research.
My own knowledge of this history is based on the experience of
having closely followed the development of Nordic social pedagogy
for more than 15 years. From 1987 to 1993 I also had a position at
one of the university colleges where social pedagogues were trained,
and since the beginning of 2000, I am responsible for the develop-
ment of social pedagogical research at the department of education
(and from 2001 also at the department of social work), Stockholm
University, as professor of social pedagogy.
The fact, that social pedagogical research often has been forced
to legitimate its position within the academic society could explain
some of the interest in philosophical, meta-level analyses. Ques-
tions concerning science and knowledge have to some extent been
unavoidable for social pedagogical researchers during recent years.
Furthermore, the increased interest that we have seen in social peda-
gogical research during the last 20 years in the Nordic countries,
has to a large extent been addressed by teachers in this field. When
becoming teachers, many of them have left their earlier positions
in social pedagogical practice. And many also have taken up teach-
ing during a time when research was not a self-evident part of their
teachers’ responsibility at the university colleges where the training
of social pedagogues took place. Encouraged to take up research
work, many of the teachers first of all came to focus on the practice
that they were closest to and knew most about, i.e. everyday teach-
ing and questions linked to the foundations of the knowledge field
of social pedagogy. Against this background, the discovered profile
characterized by philosophy of education, epistemology and theory
of science in current social pedagogical studies does not come as
big surprise. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that such a
183

21. profile is productive. On the contrary, there is an urgent need for
more practice-oriented work in social pedagogical research.
However, the question must also be raised if a symposium like
the one presented in this book really covers the whole range of
social pedagogical studies in the Nordic countries. Probably not.
On the contrary, I am pretty sure that there are a lot of practice-ori-
ented, social pedagogical research that is presented under the labels
of education and social work. This conclusion is supported by the
fact that researchers, like Hans-Erik Hermansson, usually do not
present their research in the framework of social pedagogy, but as
social work. The same is true for Håkan Jenner (Gerrevall & Jenner
2001), who has done extensive studies of social pedagogical practice,
for examples in institutions for young persons with social problem.
And most of this practice-oriented work is published within educa-
tion. This also might explain some of the dominance of the philo-
sophical, meta-level perspective. Conferences and symposia in social
pedagogy, first of all attract people who identify themselves with the
special field of social pedagogy, which for the moment often means
teachers of social pedagogy.
It is also interesting to note that I, at the Stockholm symposium,
could not find any typical examples of essentialist, theoretical per-
spective. To some extent, this might be a general characteristic of
social pedagogy. The history of social pedagogy, highlighting the
importance of societal, organizational and cultural factors in indi-
vidual development, learning or socialization, has perhaps made
it especially immune against reductionistic, essentialist analyses.
However, the lack of essentialist perspectives at the Stockholm
symposium can probably also be explained by the fact that only a
very limited number of the relevant studies in social pedagogy were
presented.
Finally, I would like to return to the question whether there
seems to exist a special theoretical perspective in social pedagogy.
Of course, a single Nordic symposium offers a weak, and probably
also a biased, answer to this question. However, what we can see in
the chapters documenting the Stockholm symposium can perhaps
be said to give some support for such a perspective. Compared to
disability/handicap research in general, the presented social peda-
184

22. gogical studies show much more elaborated theoretical perspectives.
No clear examples of non-theoretical perspectives were found. One
could perhaps object that the theoretical analyses of the histories
of social pedagogy presented by Mikser and Hegstrup are far from
deep. However, their basic approaches have much in common with
the typical meta-level, disciplinary social pedagogical approach
found in other texts and should therefore be categorized accord-
ingly.
However, a knowledge field cannot be maintained just by theory.
In my understanding, the most important problem in the social
pedagogical research, presented at the Stockholm conference, and
in other social pedagogical research that I know of, seems to be the
extremely limited interest in empirical studies of the existing, rather
extensive, social pedagogical practices. More such studies, from the
constructivist, multi-level perspectives illustrated in Hermansson’s
study, would strengthen the position of social pedagogy as an inde-
pendent knowledge field considerably.
Referenser
Barnes, C. (1996) Disability and the myth of the independent researcher. Disability
& Society vol. 11, pp. 107– 110.
Bogdan, R. C. & Taylor S. (1987) Towards a sociology of acceptance: The other
side of the study of deviance. Social Policy, 18 (2) pp. 34–39.
Davis, J.M. (2000) Disability Studies as Ethnographic Research and Text: Research
Strategies and Roles for Promoting Change. Disability & Society vol. 15, no.
2, pp. 191–206.
Dowling, M. & Dolan L. (2001) Families with Children with Disabilities —
Inequalities and the Social Model. Disability & Society vol. 16, no. 1
pp. 21–35.
Edgerton, R. & Gaston A. M. (1991) “I’ve seen it all!! Lives of Older Persons with
Mental Retardation in the Community. Baltimore: Paul Bookes Publishing
Co.
Finkelstein, V. (1975) To deny or not deny disability. Magic Carpet no. 28,
pp. 31–38.
Finkelstein, V. (1980) Attitudes and Disabled people. New York: World Rehabilita-
tion fund.
185

23. Geertz, C. (1993) Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology.
London: Fontana Press.
Gerrevall, P. & Jenner, H. (2001) Kommunikativ pedagogik och särskilda ungdoms-
hem. Forskningsrapport 2001:2 från SiS, Stockholm.
Goodley, D. (2001) ‘Learning Difficulties’, the Social Model of Disability and
Impairment: Challenging Epistemology. Disability & Society vol. 16 no. 2,
pp. 207–231.
Gustavsson, A. & Söder, M. (1990) Social Forskning om Människor med Psykisk
Utvecklingsstörning. En bibliograferad kommentar (Social Research on People
with Intellectual Disability). FoU-rapport 1990:1 from Vårdhögskolan in
Stockholm.
Gustavsson, A. (2001) Studying personal experiences of disability: What happened
to verstehen when Einfühlung disappeared. Scandinavian Journal of Dis-
ability Research vol. 3 no. 2, pp. 29–40.
Hermansson, H.-E. (2000) Arbete i egen regi. Från arbetsmarknadsprojekt till social
economi (Work under personal management. From labor-market projects to
social economy). Göteborg: Daidalos.
Hunt, P. (1996) (ed.) Stigma. London: Chapman.
Llewellyn, A. & Hogan, K. (2000) The Use and Abuse of Models of Disability.
Disability & Society Vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 157–165.
Oliver, M. (1996) The Politics of Disablement. A Sociological Approach. New York:
St. Martins Press.
Swain, J. & French S. (2000) Towards an Affirmative Model of Disability. Dis-
ability & Society vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 569–582.
Söder, M. (1999) Specialpedagogisk forskning mellan det kliniska och det kontextuella
(Special Education Research: Between the clinical and the contextual perspec-
tives). Bodø: Nordlandsforskning, NF 8/99.
Trankell, A. (1973) Kvarteret Flisan (The Block Flisan). Stockholm: Norstedts
förlag.
Beckett, C & Wrighton, E. (2000) ‘What Matters to Me is Not What You’r talking
about—Maintaining the Social Model of Disability. Disability & Society vol.
15, no. 7, pp. 991–999.
186

24. Contributors
Lisbeth Eriksson, Senior lecturer, Department of Behavioural
Sciences, Linköping University
Elsebeth Fog, Senior lecturer, Department for Studies of the Indi-
vidual and Society, University of Trollhättan/Uddevalla
Hans-Erik Hermansson, Professor in social work/social pedagogy,
Department for Studies of the Individual and Society, Univer-
sity of Trollhättan/Uddevalla
Håkan Jenner, Professor of education, School of Education, Växjö
University
Anders Gustavsson, Professor of education, especially social
pedagogy and disability research, Department of Education,
Stockholm University
Søren Hegstrup, Fil. Lic., Research department, National Institute
of Social Education, Hindholm
Juha Hämäläinen, Professor of social work, especially social
pedagogy, Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy,
University of Kuopio
187

25. Inger Kraav, Ass. Professor of education, Department of General
Education, Faculty of Education, University of Tartu
Johny Lauritsen, President of Hindholm Social Pedagogical Col-
lege
Ann-Marie Markström, PhD-student at the Department of Edu-
cational Science, Linköping and lecturer at the Department of
Social Work (campus Norrköping), Linköping University
Rain Mikser, Doctoral student of education at the Department of
Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of Tartu
Anne-Mari Röpelinen, Lecturer of social Work, M.S.Sc, Depart-
ment of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, University of
Kuopio
188

26. 189

27. 190