Socio-Pedagogical Contexts of Social Marginalization

The interest in the social context of protective, educational and didactic processes has very long tradition in the area of pedagogy, reaching back to times preceding the very emergence of this field of science. It is reflected both in the development of borderline sub-discipline, which is social pedagogy, and in the subjects of interest of specific pedagogies, such as: special, early scholar, preschool and protective pedagogy. By refering to both sociological theory and methodology, pedagogues contributed to the broadening of pedagogical explorations and enriching their effects. It seems, however, that these possibilities are still not fully utilized. One of these little-recognized movements is sociology, which directs diagnostic studies and studies explaining social life mechanisms, is the social distance theory. We may assume that it still remains to be explored by pedagogues, as it is marginalized by underestimating, especially compared to the use of other sociological theories, both in constructing pedagogical theory and in developing specificchange strategies.