Epistemological Developments of Modern Social Pedagogy

This study proposes a historic foray into the field of social pedagogy. It analyses origins, phases and the conceptual development of this area, based on the cultural model of modern society. Although social pedagogy has different emphases and approaches depending on particular historical and geographical contexts, a common theme is that it deals with the connections between educational and social dynamics, or to put it differently concern the educational dimension of social issues and the social dimensions of educational issues. Historical research methodology will be based on the principle of synchronism and diachronism social and human sciences in their own context- generally, pedagogical sciences- in particular.The historical approach to social pedagogy creates epistemological preconditions for identifying the axiomatic framework of Education Sciences, developed in the perspective of the sociocentrist paradigm. Updating and valorisation of fundamental pedagogical works and models in the history of education can help us to understand the current issues of education, in terms of the challenges of the knowledge society in a didactic, theoretical and operational perspective.The first part of this study analyzes the history of the field of social pedagogy since its german origins with a focus on two great tendencies: the kantian tradition (Paul Natorp) and the historicist-hermeneutics tradition (Herman Nöhl). The second part of the paper reviews the conceptual framework at the level of some opened epistemic models in the area of social pedagogy (axioms, laws, principles ) as aspects of the process of understanding the essence of the phenomenon of education.