The aim of the research is to define individual psychological traits of adolescents that influence the formation of their self-perception. An empirical study was conducted on the basis of general education schools, boarding schools for the hearing impaired students and orphanages of the Kharkiv region (Ukraine). The study included 86 children. In accordance with this aim empirical methods were applied: Self-perception profile for adolescents (SPPA), Freiburg Multifactorial Personality Questionnaire (FPI), An Adolescent’s Character Traits Questionnaire, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. It has been found that self-perception of general education school students is determined by depressiveness, shyness, extroversion, and stuck type of accentuation; in adolescents with hearing impairments - friendliness, reactive aggressiveness, extroversion, emotive and anxiety types of accentuation; in orphans - pedantic and dysthymic types of character accentuation.

The contribution analyzes the most important risks of the present youth subcultures and the opportunities for social work and social pedagogy with regard to the problems of youth subcultures. The basic characteristics of youth subcultures is described as well as their social development, types and forms. The central meaning is inscribed to the possibilities of interdisciplinary coaction of social pedagogy and social work when solving specific problems of youth subcultures in the process of socialization during free time or at the penetration of social deviations. A specific attention is paid to the definition of the professional roles of social workers and social pedagogues in relation to the risky youth subcultures.

The paper analyses the contribution of Professor Ondrej Baláž, honorary editor of The New Educational Review, to the establishment and development of social pedagogy in Slovakia. In comparison with European (Polish) social pedagogy, Slovak social pedagogy started developing much later, in the 1970s. Its establishment and development was strongly influenced by Professor Ondrej Baláž who started developing social pedagogy under the influence of the thought of R. Wroczyński and German social pedagogy.