Social-educational horse activity instructors’ perceptions of impacting factors and the role of the horse in client work
Keywords:
social pedagogy, animal-assisted intervention, sustainable well-being, multi-species interaction, agencyAbstract
Social-educational horse activity is defined as a working orientation to support social growth and well-being in community education with horses. The study aimed to explore the instructors’ perceptions about what factors increase the participant’s well-being and what the horse’s role is. The theoretical framework is the theory of sustainable well-being. Our research data consisted of quality manuals (n=67) completed by the instructors in 2021–2022, of which we analyzed two open questions with qualitative theory-driven content analysis.
According to our results, the influencing factors of social-educational horse activity are related to meaningful interactions, presence, agency, and demonstrating the importance of basic living needs. The horse’s role is to support the instructor and
the client in interactive work. Based on our results, the horse is assigned a position of emotional labour, which requires consideration of the nature of the work from the horse’s perspective. Further studies could examine the advantages, disadvantages, and prerequisites of multi-species interaction and appropriate research methods for assessing impacts from both human and animal perspectives.
