Socio-educational action in Colombia: historical, academic and professional means to social work and social pedagogy

Social work and social pedagogy in Colombia are disciplines and professional fields of special relevance for social and educational action. This article analyses what has been the evolution of these fields of knowledge and practice in the Colombian context, from historical, disciplinary, professional and academic standpoints. For this, a documentary analysis has been carried out methodologically in the two areas of knowledge, with a historical and theoretical review of the disciplines in the country, as well as of the relevant national undergraduate and graduate programmes. This article concludes by establishing that social work has a longer historical trajectory in the country to provide social responses to complex problems and violence, with vocational professionalisation, scientific intervention and wide academic recognition in careers present in the country’s universities. In contrast, social pedagogy has had some attempts at being instituted into careers in the country and presents a great diversification of professions from popular or community education, and has struggled to become professionalised due to the prominence given to social work by public policy and education. Nonetheless, our analysis demonstrates that with the historical influence of critical pedagogies and recent global contributions, there is currently a significant upward trajectory of social pedagogy in Colombia, with two Master’s degrees existing since 2019 (which train educators and social workers in socio-educational action).