THE SOCIAL ECONOMY IN ROMANIA, BETWEEN PRAXIS AND THE NEED OF CONCEPTUALIZING PRACTICE

The article contains some reflections about social economy in Romania. These reflections are based on the participatory observations of the author as an expert and they were realized during the initiation and unfolding of some social economy projects in different phases. They are also the outcome of the author's participation at international conferences in Brussels about social economy and conceptualization of the theory in practice. The scope of the article is to draw attention to the necessity of a analysis on the impact of structured projects in the social economy domain, the need of developing some theoretical concepts after the projects have ended, in other words adapting the theory to reality, and the fact that the universities must promote these projects. In the rural environment the perspective for the most communities is that of further developing associativity between vulnerable groups and the persons with entrepreneurial experience. This involves the further developing of trust and participatory spirit. The Universities have the responsibility of promoting new and social innovative learning patterns in the social economy domain for the future social workers and social teachers.