The working group „Social Education” deals with issues regarding stimulation of local development and activation of local communities. Nowadays such phenomena are extremely important in order to create social capital and civil society development, as well as to employ the local community to solve social problems. The group of experts and students deal on academic basis with three main areas of social support: social work, community animation and community education.Social work is considered here as an instrument of social policy, especially of social care, whereas community animation and community education are regarded as social education methods, aiming at kindling grass-root initiatives for local communities activating, and also contributing to resolving local community issues.The group’s aim is to elaborate on the theoretical and practical issues associated with abovementioned areas, as well as to link the instruments and methods of social policy offered by institutionalised social policy entities with informal activities of diverse social groups including community animators, community educators, and social activists in the process. The working group “Social Education” assembles on plenary sessions as well as within subgroups dealing with particular subjects. An attempt to link social policy instruments with methods of social education undertaken by the group is highly innovative. The experts will also seek to link „top-down” and „bottom-up approaches”.The group’s aim is also to analyse social services offered in Polish social policy system up to date, such as social work, social work with families, and community work, as well as an attempt to diagnose community activity in Polish municipalities and districts. The researchers will consider questions such as what methods and actions may be undertaken to activate local community, how to inspire grassroots, informal initiatives serving greater social involvement in resolving diverse social issues.The group will create a catalogue of social services offered in terms of social work, community activation and community education, and then scrutinise their quality, financing methods, legal aspects, infrastructure and service delivering entities.In result they will show diverse developments in community activation, building social capital, and social services, try to assess efficacy of undertaken actions, and assess the system of management and coordination of social policy in these areas.The work group’s research will effect in publication of a scientific book presenting current state of knowledge on social work, human services, community activation and community education in Poland. The research directed towards social services is highly important as many social services in Poland need to be developed on a local level. The book will include recommendations for decisionmakers, especially the local authorities, regarding necessity of running the activation and social integration programs in order to create higher social cohesion.