About Social education
Social education is a discipline that studies the environment people live in and the means of activating and supporting them. Social education undergoes constant change, which follows with the unceasing changes in the society brought about by technological progress, globalisation, as well as an increase in the number of social issues and pathologies, which the society must address if it wishes to remain democratic.
“Social education can activate, support, and motivate towards a meaningful life.”
Lenka Gulová, 2018
Social education tackles issues from three main areas; first is diagnostics of the environment where the individual lives, second is the effort to minimize the threat the environment presents, and third is the application of methods to prevent and compensate for this threat's impact.
History of our department
- 1998 – development of the full-time bachelor's degree programme Social Education at the Faculty of education, MU
- 2002 – founding of the Department of Social Education
- 2008 – expanding to a master's study programme
- 2016 – obtaining accreditation for a double-subject programme in social education in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Studies
a) Social Education and Social Work
b) Social Education and Environmental Studies
- 2016 - receiving accreditation for our own doctoral study programme in social education
Teaching principles
Our teaching draws heavily on the principles of constructivism, emphasising various forms of group learning, e.g.:
- flipped learning,
- Cyril Mooney's methods,
- cooperative learning,
- experiential reflective learning.
Target groups
Social education targets children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. In other words, normal population, where much effort in the area of leisure time is linked with value education, and socially disadvantaged individuals and groups.
Socially disadvantaged groups include
- children and adolescents who are growing up in an unstimulating, high-risk environment,
- migrants, ethnic minorities, asylum seekers,
- certain families, incomplete families, single parents, families with more children.
- individuals and groups suffering from social pathologies (poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, violence, bullying, divorce)
- often Roma families segregated by their life situation and social standing,
- some elderly people and singles
“Social education has the potential to become what philosophy used to be in the 18th century.”
Radim Šíp, 2018
Social educators and school
Inclusion has recently become a major topic of the field. It does not concern only school, but the whole of society; it matters to every person in every situation.
The school is a unique social environment. It is a place that enables major characteristics of the whole society to appear. Recently, one model has gained in popularity; it sees "school as a community" and is supported by the Department of Social Education as well. The following keywords are often connected with inclusion:
- open school, open society,
- culture of respect, work with otherness,
- human dignity at school, in a family, various institutions, or the society as a whole,
- values, value education.
“More so than any other educational discipline the objectives of social education change with changes in the society at a specific location during a specific time.”
Milan Přadka, 1993