Deontology and code of conduct for social educators

Ethics and deontology are critical in today's professional practice and still more for those that provide their services and deal with underprivileged persons, as is the case of Social Education. Both future professionals in Social Education and those already in practice require specific training in deontological ethics since, as individuals, they live in a world that is governed by values that are contrary to those required in their profession. This training should focus on improving the understanding of ethics, morals and deontology. More specifically, it should seek to enable students to engage in individual and group reflection with their peers on the good sought by socio-educational practices, good practices, and the ethical dilemmas they often encounter in their daily practice. Although this profession is relatively new, social educators have a long-standing tradition in voluntary services. They have had their own official code of conduct since September 2007, which was preceded by a draft code written in 1996. Having a Code is regarded as a guarantee of professional quality and excellence. Therefore, it is an essential requirement of professional practice. However, in the case of Social Education, a quick review of the range of courses available at universities reveals that they do not provide for ethics training in their curricula, nor there are courses available for practicing professionals. Thus, in general, they do not know the contents of the code even if they are aware of its existence. All this makes this important document a dead letter, or at the most, a useless one for the Social Education practice.