Book excerpt: Situated at the intersection between social work and education, social pedagogy is an original and dynamic academic and professional tradition. It can be found across most European countries and shows great variety, being closely connected to specific national - and sometimes even regional cultures and structures. Yet despite this diversity, social pedagogy also has many common features, cross-nationally. The aim of the book is to illustrate this diversity via a selection of case studies from Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden. Although social pedagogy is, in many countries, a profession that represents a sizeable workforce, very little has been written about it from a European perspective. Comparative literature tends to look at social work, whereby social pedagogy is obscured. But while there is a lack of comparative social pedagogy literature, interest in social pedagogy is growing. This is particularly so in the United Kingdom where no social pedagogy tradition exists but policy developments point to the emergence of a social pedagogy paradigm both in academia and in terms of careers. This book aims to help fill the gap. Case studies deal with theoretical and practical aspects of social pedagogy, professional education, fields of practice and research as well as links with other academic and professional paradigms.