**4. The new social need of the professional at the top of the pedagogical culture**

This particular crisis today is clearly a problematic situation for pedagogy: we refer to a pedagogy that, properly and by its very nature, cannot have any form of detachment, just like, for example, the separation of the historian or what has been attributed to clinical physicians for a long time.

In cases like these, it is manifested more clearly than elsewhere in the application framework that is its true essence, not reducible to merely speculative, philosophical or 'theoretical' thought, but inseparable from taking charge and care of whosoever is going to be educated, in any interpersonal relationship and as a social requirement, and from the organic relationship with the experience of the object of its study and intervention.

This, among other things, is more consistent with the etymology of a term [7] that is present and common in Romance languages, as well as in German and Slavic languages and also in Hungarian, Finnish, Basque or Albanian, while it is still facing difficulties in English. We should not forget that the same term has appeared in the West in 1495, as a mold from Latin [8].

This means that pedagogy is characterized more clearly today than it was in the past, as a domain of study that can be called upon to express its own profession: an upper intellectual profession, working in the social and in all of its instances, whose most proper name is "Pedagogist" (Pädagoge, paedagogist…not to be confused with the educator, l'éducateur or die Erziehrer).

Strictly speaking, the profession of the pedagogist has emerged (or better, reemerged) as a social profession only in the twentieth century. This can be compared to the professions of the psychologist, sociologist, psychotherapist, and in some respect to other intellectual occupations such as the accountant or the social worker.

For all these professions, and others, a wide methodological framework is to be found in the previous century, mostly *in Mitteleuropa*, in the central European world German-speaking, or in its immediate vicinities. For example, a psychologist would refer to Wundt, Weber, Fechner, Helmholtz, Mach; a sociologist to Auguste

Comte as the first thinker and then to the Alsatian-Lorraine Durkheim for vast amounts of knowledge and content; and a psychotherapist first to Sigmund Freud, and so forth.

The profession of the pedagogist too finds its foundation in the same world, to be precise, in the establishment of die Sozialpädagogik and in its first steps. We would then refer to Mager, Diesterweg, Natorp, and also the social sensitivity of some pedagogists like Pestalozzi, of course as a generalist or Durkheim himself, considering his character not less pedagogical than sociological, being one of the fathers of the Scientific Sociology. It should be kept in due consideration the fact that he had become a full professor at the Sorbonne in 1906 for the Chair of Pedagogy; it was in 1913 that the name of the course would become *Pedagogy and Sociology*, and at least in our context, his pedagogical works are not to be considered minor works [9].

## **5. Conceptual and operative pedagogist tools from ancient times until the present time**

This reference to the last centuries does not diminish the history of pedagogy, which traces its origins back to Western civilization and that must be considered a resource, as Dewey taught us since he traced it back to the Sophists "*the first body of professional educators in Europe*" [10], partly because the essential tools both of the reference knowledge and the professional practice are to be found precisely in those classical roots.

We could begin with the classical Greek culture. We will start, therefore, with πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν by Protagoras; ουδέν εστίν, ει δ'εστίν ου νοητόν, ει δε νοητόν, αλλ'ου γνωστόν, ειδέ και γνωστόν, αλλ'ου δηλωτόν άλλους by Gorgias; φύσει μέν εστίν 'άνθρωπος ζωόν πολιτικόν by Aristotle; the role and importance of 'ρητορεία; the Socratic διάλογος in its two phases, that of ειρωνεία and of μαιευτική τέχνη; πολιτεία meant as socialization and active participation in political activities, in the broadest sense of the term; the classical logic with its rules; the γνϖθι σεαυτόν, with its full awareness of everybody's potentialities and limitations; finally the condemnation of 'ύβρις. We will, however, go on quoting other expressions full of significance.

This does not diminish the necessity to refer to that long history, as for example with reference to Seneca, Quintilianus, Scholastics or part of it, and other authors in the Middle Age.

When we quote Comenius, we have already arrived at a modern perspective (i.e., at the Modern Age) and not surprisingly in the field of an educational pedagogy practiced in schools, rather than social as it was the art of the Paedagogus in the ancient Greece and Rome.

We claim it should be better to understand deeply the reasons why professionals whose technical-scientific culture is pedagogy based, including the school staff, the historical dimension actually plays a fundamental role, which is not accomplished by other forms of knowledge or by other professions.

#### **6. Die Sozialpädagogik and its role**

*Die Sozialpädagogik* is a branch of the General Pedagogy, which, while going back to the mid-nineteenth century, in Italy has been largely ignored for nearly a century and a half, as pedagogy, not a direct and vocational school education, has

**157**

in progress.

*Pedagogist as Social Professional: Sozialpädagogik and Professional Pedagogy*

largely been marginalized and as other social scientific knowledge with professional

The majority of the academic Italian Pedagogy has long been confined in the 'Magisteri,' particular university faculties that had been founded and developed since the 1930s with primal scholastic educational purposes, and as such, they

The term "extraschool" and its derivatives have been used for a long time to extend the dominant school education, as if the commitment to education were essentially centered on school, and the rest was attributable to a single generic and vague term. Today, this expression is out of use, but the reductive vision recurs through too many approaches to social pedagogy, which are characterized by a substantial and unique variation to social issues: as if one could forget that the entire pedagogy concerns society, social relationships and the roles of people in society. In simple but strict terms, pedagogy whose domain covers the whole of society is called 'General Pedagogy': this does not make it really necessary to point out or develop a branch called 'Social Pedagogy' with the entire society as its domain as well.

In the Italian law and culture, school roles and functions have a strong definition

and structure; instead, regulatory definitions and recognitions are missing long

We had to wait until the end of the year 2017. December 27 2017, the Italian parliament approved in the comprehensive law 205 eight paragraphs of article 1 that finally gave a legal recognition to the pedagogist with a master's degree, as well as to

The pedagogist, at the apical level, should have received, after an initial MSc degree, further training with vocational qualification. On the contrary, the professional educator socio-sanitary, that is the operator of educational practice in the world of Health, and acts properly at an intermediate level, in Italy has a proper corresponding initial university education (a 3-year course) and a strong legalized legislation only in healthcare (after the Ministerial Decree 520/98), and follows degree programs that are still active in the faculty of Medicine and Surgery. Nowadays, one of the pivotal tasks of pedagogy is to bring the Social Pedagogy back to its origins and to its specific nature, taking into account today's emerging needs for social and higher intellectual pedagogy professionbased and for the academic induction-oriented courses. On this task and on its fulfilling, the role of pedagogy is basically played within the culture and society

A mistake to avoid carefully in the profession of pedagogists is falling in the dualism between theory and praxis. It is a sort of dualism spread in the nineteenth century or before, typically philosophical, belonging to those that John Dewey systematically fought against. Pedagogy cannot be reduced only to a theoretical level or just to the level of praxis, or to some contrasts between them. It is rather a dimension in between theory and practice, synthesis and chance of communication

The level in between can be defined with the term *applicativity*. The terminological issue has a very important strength if we consider the persistence of phrases

time as for other specifically pedagogic professions in the social field.

the socio-pedagogical professional educator (3-year degree).

**8. The pedagogist's professional practice 'in between'**

between the two levels mutually irreducible.

effects such as Psychology and Sociology has long been held in low esteem.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91335*

remained until their closure in the 1990s.

**7. What's new in Italian law?**

#### *Pedagogist as Social Professional: Sozialpädagogik and Professional Pedagogy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91335*

largely been marginalized and as other social scientific knowledge with professional effects such as Psychology and Sociology has long been held in low esteem.

The majority of the academic Italian Pedagogy has long been confined in the 'Magisteri,' particular university faculties that had been founded and developed since the 1930s with primal scholastic educational purposes, and as such, they remained until their closure in the 1990s.

The term "extraschool" and its derivatives have been used for a long time to extend the dominant school education, as if the commitment to education were essentially centered on school, and the rest was attributable to a single generic and vague term. Today, this expression is out of use, but the reductive vision recurs through too many approaches to social pedagogy, which are characterized by a substantial and unique variation to social issues: as if one could forget that the entire pedagogy concerns society, social relationships and the roles of people in society. In simple but strict terms, pedagogy whose domain covers the whole of society is called 'General Pedagogy': this does not make it really necessary to point out or develop a branch called 'Social Pedagogy' with the entire society as its domain as well.
