Social Innovation in Education and Social Service Organizations. Challenges, Actors, and Approaches to Foster Social Innovation

Abstract

Social innovation became a widely discussed topic in politics, research funding programs, and business development. Recent European and US economic and science policies have set aside significant funds to generate and foster social innovation. In view of current challenges such as digitization, Work 4.0, inclusion or migrant integration, the question of how organizations can be empowered to develop new and innovative approaches and service models to social challenges is becoming increasingly urgent. This especially applies to organizations in the fields of education and social services. In education, implementing new ideas and concepts is usually discussed as educational reform, which mostly addresses changes in policy agendas with consequences for national and international education systems. The concept of social innovation however has a different starting point: the source of new ideas and services are identified new, emergent needs in society or re-conceptualized. Such need-based perspectives might bring new impulses to the field of education. Therefore, this paper identifies important existing strands of social innovation research, which need to be considered in the emerging academic discourse on social innovation in education. Looking at social innovation through an education research lens reveals the close relation between learning, creativity, and innovation. Individuals, teams, and even organizations learn, engage in creative problem solving to create new and innovative products and services. From an organizational education perspective, the questions arise, how social innovation emerges and even more important, how the process of developing social innovation can be supported. After a brief introduction in the concept of social innovation, the paper discusses therefore the sites, where social innovation emerges, social innovators, approaches to foster social innovation as well as promoting and hindering factors for social innovation.

Wie gestalten wir Gesellschaft?

“…Dies gilt beispielsweise für die Debatte um Soziale Innovationen, in der explizit die Ausrichtung von Innovationsentwicklungsprozessen am Sozialraum diskutiert wird (Schröer und Schütz 2023). Bei der Entwicklung Sozialer Innovationen wird Design Thinking insbesondere im Kontext Sozialer Innovationslabore genutzt (Schröer 2018;Manhart et al 2020;Schröer 2021;, die als Ermöglichungsraum die Lösungsentwicklung methodisch unterstützen. Darüber hinaus finden sich in der Sozialen Arbeit bereits Erfahrungen mit Design Thinking, indem etwa mit Kindern und Jugendlichen erprobt wird, Angebote im Rahmen der Quartiersentwicklung zu schaffen (Heller et al 2020).…”

The development of an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for Forest School in the United Kingdom

“…The prescriptive nature of the National Curriculum in the United Kingdom has been a concern for education scholars over recent decades as the pursuit of a knowledge‐rich curriculum has thwarted creativity in education settings, both for teachers and learners (Hudson & Shelton, 2020). These curriculum changes, often directed by political point‐scoring rather than educational need, dilute the value of creativity in education, which has been highlighted in decades of research (e.g., Robinson, 2001; Schröer, 2021).…”

The University’s Receptivity to Social Innovations: Theoretical Aspect

“…While analyzing social innovations, important to note, that it can work at three levels. Socio-political reform, changes in regulatory frameworks and institutional normscan be assigned to the macro level, new business models, new services, new management practicesmeso level, and strengthening of user participation and new professional practices that generate added value for the addressees asat the micro level (Schröer, 2021). However, despite the breadth of social innovations in the education system, and especially in higher education, it remains central to tackling a wide range of social problems, the value of which belongs to society but not to individuals, and the solutions themselves are not only more effective but also more sustainable (Bolz & Bruin, 2019) while increasing the use of resources to improve the high quality and competitiveness of human capital (Osetskyy et al, 2020).…”