An eco-social turn in social pedagogy

Social pedagogy has traditionally been classified into three main paradigms following the theory of knowledge interests by Jürgen Habermas: the positivist, the hermeneutical and the critical paradigm. In this article, we argue that the increased discussion of ecological and eco-social questions in social pedagogy are more than just new perspectives in social pedagogical theory and research: specifically, they are a sign of an eco-social turn and an emerging new paradigm, which presents the whole field with a challenge comparable to the so-called emancipatory turn in 1960s Germany. Back then, the rise of more critical views of society and the increasing role of social pedagogy in maintaining oppressive structures challenged the (at that time) dominant hermeneutical and positivist paradigms and called for a more critical analysis of societal structures. The emancipatory turn led to the development of the critical paradigm, which posed an ontological, epistemological and methodological challenge to the whole discipline and led to new discussions of the worldview and purpose of social pedagogy. We argue that in the 2020s, social pedagogy faces an equivalent transformative turn that challenges the whole field. The article is based on theoretical analysis of the current discussions in the field and aims to establish a meta-theoretical framework for existing and emerging discussions, which can be labelled eco-social. The concept of the eco-social turn has been presented in Finnish in a textbook published in 2024; this article presents the concept to English-speaking audiences and develops it further.