A substantial number of young people are facing severe difficulties due to wider social, political and economic change. Using a review of the litterature and a descriptive research approach this paper explores issueas of youth education, training, employment and social capital on the Swedish welfare landscape, as important factors in the education of social professions, to understand and meet the needs of young vulnerable populations.

Across the social work and social pedagogy educational programmes in Sweden, the nature and process of curriculum designs require engagement with multiple stakeholders within a highly complexcontext. A number of studies have identified diverse models of academic collaborations derived fromvarious theoretical positions and environmental influences. This article explores collaborative creativity embedded in Swedish national and international Erasmus networking. Research participantsconsisted of teaching staff, fieldworkers, experts and researchers.This study goes on to propose knowledge alliances as action models for capacity building in socialpedagogy and social work professional practice. It is concluded that sharing information and perspectives on, for example, contextual aspects and theoretical viewpoints in which scholars and practitioners operate, provides inspiration for capacity building in social pedagogical educational settings.This article has been prepared within the framework of the project ‘Social Professions for YouthEducation in the Context of European Solidarity’ (2019-1-PL 01-KA203-065091).

The coronavirus pandemic affects the whole world. This situation is a very challenging time forall humanity and social services no less. The present article explores how care and differentforms of support can or should be offered to young people in the post-COVID-19 youth work.The objective of this paper is to reflect on how social work practitioners can adapt their dailyclinical practice by focusing their interventions on the social pedagogical dimensions of socialwork. The article presents a generalised discussion of practice logics in social work and socialpedagogy. Because of the meanings derived from knowledge on the importance of relationshipsbetween the helper and the help receiver, social practices in the post-COVID-19 world need toconsider social pedagogical expertise in social work practice and the development of preventiveassistance for young populations. This effort has been prepared as a part of the project “SocialProfessionals for Youth Education in the context of European Solidarity”.

Today’s welfare system faces a variety of social challenges in terms of social vulnerability, inequality and the presence of segregated and parallel societies. Within this complexity, the professional practitioner meets opportunities for action, institutional frameworks, and the role of higher education as a future social innovator. The objective of this paper is to suggest an inquiry concerning how social work students form their conception on the complexity of every-day social work practice and professional expertise. The focus is to investigate social work students’ process and formation of knowledge regarding challenge based learning (CBL). Methodologically the examination will be based on multi-method data triangulation design. In conclusion this paper suggests the use of socio-ecological and social learning theory to develop more dynamic teaching models to enhance the understanding of the challenging pathways linking social structures in development of students’ professional self.

A major challenge in contemporary welfare societies is the delivery of services affirming people’s expectations for their life standard, health and social care services. For decades, there has been a search to understand new ways of conceptualising social pedagogy as a field of practice, as a theory, and as a programme design and implementation. Despite the growing body of literature on social pedagogy, to date, little has been written on the subject of the unique complexities of social pedagogy knowledge expertise when bridging the supporting relationships between an individual and the social dimensions in his/her world. Based on research conducted in Northern Europe, particularly focusing on Denmark and Sweden, the aim of this special issue of International Journal of Papers of Social Pedagogy (PSP) on Contemporary Issues in Social Pedagogy in Northern Europe is to convey the central importance of social pedagogy for the study of vitality and diversity behind social pedagogy thought. The presented research projects in this special issue are, in their foundation, associated with a constructivist approach that views the body of knowledge development as an active and cooperative process of knowledge construction and its application in social pedagogy discipline. This article intends to provide a general perspective concerning the presence of various knowledge forms according to the search for, and implementation of, thinking and acting in a social pedagogy inspired way, and working under various conditions.

De föremål som vi studerar kan ha olika karaktärsdrag och behov av användning av olika metodologiska angreppssätt. För att studera hjälpande relationer i omsorgsverksamheter användes i denna studie PAR - participatory actionresearch som metod. Denna presentation återger deltagarbaserad forskning inom omsorger om personer med intellektuella funktionshinder. Resultaten visade komplicerade samverkansrelationer och behov av satsningar på mer vertikala samverkansmodeller där brukarnas down -upp perspektivet kan göras mer specifik och förtydligad

The present study follows the PAR line of research conducted in daily activities centres for people with developmental and learning disabilities. The general aim of the inquiry is to identify, understand and interpret the sense that socio-ecological context and social pedagogy concerns of integration into mainstream community form complex and fluid collaborative structure, resulting in both opportunities and constrains on learning.

The aim of this study was to investigate the illness perception and self-management among Thai women and Thai men with type 2 diabetes (T2D)and to investigate the psychometric properties of the translated instruments used. The study was conducted in a suburban province of Thailand, 220 women and men with type 2 diabetes participated in a cross-sectional descriptive study. The participants were selected using a multistage sampling method. Results showed that women and men with type 2 diabetes demonstrated very similar experiences regarding their illness perception and no differences in self-management. Women perceived more negative consequences of the disease and more fluctuation in the symptoms than men, whereas men felt more confident about the treatment effectiveness than women. Furthermore, the translated instruments used in this study showed acceptable validity and reliability. It is concluded that The Thai sociocultural context may influence people’s perceptions and affect the self-care activities of Thai individuals, both women and men, with type 2 diabetes, causing differences from those found in the Western environment.

Artikeln behandlar metodologiska perspektiv och forskningsexempel inom aktionsforskning och fallstudier som vetenskaplig metod.

The article describes methodological issues in Action Research and Case Studies.

Artikel behandlar socialpedagogiska angreppssätt för preventiva sociala insatser inom socialt arbete

Global economic, cultural and ideological process in society affect social work and the Welfare regimes in developed countries. The article identifies four preventive bases for operating schemes in social pedagogy within social work practice. They are empowering strategies, an appreciatopn of client´s cultural and ethnic preferences, responsive communication and promoting collaboration, along with cultivating alliances with clients and significant actors around the client.

The key aspects to how the Swedish social insurance system is implemented are a high degree of universalism and the promotion of equality. The aim of this article is to explore certain issues of complexity in recent societal changes, in order to understand how to facilitate the provision of social welfare to disadvantaged migrant groups. The arguments presented in this article draw on contemporary research, current statistical resources and secondary sources in considering institutional aspects of social work and the provision of social pedagogy. The outlined contemporary issues concerning the migration situation in Sweden are reflected upon social segregation and social protection considered to be crucial to social pedagogy regimes. It is found that hidden social structures embedded in policy of e.g., multiculturalism may be counterproductive for the integration of new arrives. It is concluded that social work and social pedagogy practice need to go behind the hidden modes of explaining immigrant groups marginalisation and the occurred mechanisms of structural and institutional logics within and out of the social welfare system. New arrives might need special attention as they are likely to suffer from vulnerability formed by poverty, dependence of social support and poor social cohesion in the host country. Awareness of these issues will make social pedagogy practitioner able to create a focal points of performativity and facilitate treatment of immigrant groups across the social service system.