| Summary: | <p class="first" id="d130036e91">Writing from a Danish social pedagogical perspective, the author raises concerns about
the difficulty of developing and integrating ethical reflection within the organization
in the context of neoliberalism. While ethical reflection in social pedagogy tends
to focus on the relationship between practitioner and client, or the relationship
between the profession and the general public, this article wishes to focus on how
ethical reflection develops in the workplace on an everyday basis. The reason for
this focus is that the culture and language of the workplace can have major consequences
for how practitioners interpret their roles and how they interpret the official ethical
code. Although this article addresses the problem from a Danish context, the author
argues that the struggle to develop ethical reflection within the organization is
a general concern in most professions in contemporary society. What makes this problem
controversial within the Danish social pedagogical context is that the profession
has a long tradition of working qualitatively with relationship-based-practices. In
the neoliberal organization, mercantile logic undermines the ethical logic of relationship-based
practices. This is due to the former’s emphasis on effectivity and the latter’s emphasis
on responsibility. This article is a critique of what the author sees as the neoliberal
organization’s inability to tackle this conflict of values. Furthermore, this article
problematizes the ‘abstract individuality’ that neoliberal organizations produce,
highlighting the fact that such individuality is inconsistent with responsibility.
Finally, the author argues that, by reinterpreting the concept of reflective practice,
the organization may develop a more concrete individuality that is more consistent
with responsibility.
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