Conference Agenda

Inspired by the Foucault’s observation that ‘People know what they do, they frequently know why they do what they do, but what they don’t know is what what they do does’ (Foucault, cited in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983, p. 187), I am seeking to understand better what is happening in English schools in respect of a group classified as ‘disadvantaged’, with a focus specifically on teachers’ responses to these individuals.

The research questions for my PhD study are: How is ‘disadvantage’ understood by teachers in secondary schools? How is this understanding reflected in their response to ‘disadvantaged’ students? And what are the effects of this understanding on the teachers and the way in which the school operates?

The word ‘disadvantaged’ is used in English schools to describe those students eligible for free school meals (and thus the payment of additional money in the form of ‘Pupil Premium’ to their schools) because of low family income (2015). However, in common usage, the word also carries with it a range of associations and judgements linked particularly to issues of social class, ethnicity, and conceptualisations of good parenting. Whilst the government investment into the Pupil Premium has established this group of students as a priority focus for schools’ external accountability, the gap in attainment between these students and their peers has persisted (Education Policy Institute, 2020).

Much of the existing research in the area has focused on identifying deficits that the students categorised as disadvantaged present in the school setting, and on assessing the effectiveness of a range of interventions to address these issues. My study, however, informed initially by Bourdieu’s ideas of ‘reproduction’ (1990), turns the focus back on the practices of schooling, and seeks to discover, through empirical enquiry, how teachers understand the ‘disadvantage’ of their students within their school setting, and how this construction of ‘disadvantage’ shapes their response to their students. Foucault’s conceptualisation of power relations and subjectivity (Ball, 2013) are used to inform my understanding of the way in which things come to be the way that they are within the institutions of schooling. I am also using the insights of other poststructural theorists to explore the ethical struggles of teachers who find themselves trying to ‘do the right thing’ in response to the perceived needs of their students, often caught in seemingly impossible places of tension and dilemma, subject to conflicting forces. The ethical responses of teachers are being considered using Derrida’s concept of the aporia, ‘the contradictory double imperatives’ (Allan, 2008), that can be identified as embedded in school practices, alongside Levinas’s concern to ‘see the face of the other’ (Edgoose, 2001) as a framework of ethical responsibility.

Whilst the data were gathered in English schools, the problematisation of the term ‘disadvantaged’ in the study encompasses a broad range of intersecting issues of diversity relevant across international contexts, including social class, ethnicity, cultural capital, and the ways in which the process of schooling positions students, teachers and parents as subjects.

Higher education has acquired a priority in the national policy agendas with its integration into the innovation system by showing certain capacity and capability and claims for impacts on economy and society (Hazelkorn & Gibson, 2019). Accordingly, it is claimed that entrepreneurial university has become a pathway that most of the universities have entered in the discourse of knowledge economy and society (Aarrevaara et al., 2021) and universities are expected to bring a transparent mission and vision forward over this pathway (Secundo et al., 2016). The main rationale of this study refers to the need of understanding the empirical and political implications of the evolving entrepreneurial university model on the economic and social bases. This argument also touches upon the shift towards the engaged university model by keeping the public good as a wider discourse defining the role and responsibilities attached to higher education.

This doctoral thesis, which is designed to be a comparative multiple case study, aims to reveal how regionally engaged universities formulate their missions and revise their actual strategies within the entrepreneurial paradigm. As the British and German higher education systems are regarded to be receptive to innovation and entrepreneurial paradigm on the European level (Etzkowitz et al., 2000), the design is based on the comparison of strategies of two entrepreneurial university contexts from these systems with the lens of neo-institutionalism.

This study perceives entrepreneurial university as a key actor to accomplish national and regional development policy agendas (Pugh et al, 2018). In this agenda, the third mission refers to the innovation-related activities pursued for regional development. Accordingly, third mission policy on the national and regional levels has the direct power to steer university engagement practices. For example, on the European policy level, regional development is incentivized through the funding programmes of the EU Europe 2020 agenda and smart specialization strategies (Trippl et al., 2015). Despite the policy emphasis, universities’ approaches to engage in local/regional development vary in terms of social and economic engagement modes. Keeping these variations in mind, the diversity among engagement practices and the different configurations of entrepreneurial university context in the European context are linked to the differences in policy paradigms, higher education traditions and institutional contexts (Kalar and Antoncic, 2015; Trippl et al., 2015).

Constructed with multi-level qualitative research design across cross-nationally selected universities, this study adopts the lens of neo-institutional theory to advance knowledge regarding the institutional reproduction or transformation in entrepreneurial university concept. Neo-institutional theory will be used as a framework for the analysis of not only differences but also similarities in a cross-national design and denote sociological viewpoint to comparison by displaying isomorphic and culturally shaped transformations across institutions (Wiseman, 2014; 2021). As observed in the literature, the institutional theory has been adopted in relation to the entrepreneurial university for the understanding of the interaction between the micro (individual level) and the meso (institutional level) (Abreu et al., 2016). For this study, the same levels are essential as organisational culture and norms shape everyone involved within the organisation. In line with these core ideas, the research questions below are aimed to be answered.

1. How have the third mission strategies been addressed in the German and UK higher education contexts through national and regional policy levels?

1.1. How are the institutional strategies regarding entrepreneurialism and engagement contextualised within regionally engaged universities?

2. How are institutional strategies enacted by the internal stakeholders in regionally engaged universities?

2.1. What roles do the university actors take for the social and economic development of their regions?

2.2. Which modes of engagement are pursued in both university contexts?

The link between democracy and education runs through most historical and philosophical accounts of democracy (Sant, 2019, p. 657). Yet, the democratic role of education is often contested (Ávalos & Razquin, 2017; Edling & Simmie, 2020). International schools traditionally build on an 'international ethos' of valuing diversity, international mindedness, critical thinking, and educating global citizens, but these values are often in tension with neoliberal discourses and a predominantly western viewpoint (Cambridge and Thompson 2004; Dvir, Shields, and Yemini 2018, Gardner-McTaggart 2021). However, in order to participate effectively in democratic life in the 21st century, intercultural sensitivities and being able to identify with a global community are essential (Matthews and Sidhu 2005).

The study is based on in-depth interviews with ten student teachers in three different universities in Europe. The participants in this study have chosen to prepare for a teaching career in international schools or other international contexts, and attend teacher education programmes to that aim. 'International' teacher education programmes are rooted in the idea that teaching in international contexts requires a different perspective and other competences than that provided by national teacher education (Levy & Fox, 2016; van Werven, 2016). Through interviews with student teachers preparing to teach in international schools, this study addresses the following research question: what are student teachers in international programmes' perceptions, understandings and practices when it comes to democracy and diversity in education?

Democratic education is a large and long-standing field of educational scholarship, going back to Dewey (1916). Democracy itself is a highly contested concept, leading to different versions of democratic education with differing aims and practices (Sant, 2019). The concepts of international mindedness, global citizenship education, and intercultural education are also contested, may be overlapping, and have a plurality of meanings (Barratt Hacking et al., 2016; Bourn, 2015; Pashby et al., 2020). Studies have investigated the various ways teachers can develop global competences (Parkhouse et al., 2016; Savva, 2017), as well as student teachers’ and teacher educators’ perspectives on democratic and culturally responsive education in national contexts (Kasa, n.d; Pareja de Vicente, n.d.; Stacy, n.d.; Simms, n.d.; Kirkwood, 2001; Gaudelli, 2010; Burner & Biseth, 2016). However, teacher education tends to get less scholarly attention than other educational stages, and international education is also underresearched (Bunnell, 2016).

This paper takes as a starting point a critical pedagogy lens and a ‘thick’ concept of democracy (Gandin & Apple, 2002). This entails a broad view of what may constitute democratic education, which includes e.g. ideas of global as well as local active citizenship, intercultural communication and approaches to diversity in international classrooms. A critical lens allows for investigating structures that reproduce inequality and injustice, and how they might be transformed. Through a critical lens, education can be seen as maintaining inequality and dominant ideologies, but also as a path to breaking free from patterns of oppression (Freire, 2014; Kincheloe, 2012; Apple, 2004; Carr, 2008).

Topic: An in-depth investigation into first year undergraduate students’ social and personal-emotional adjustment to the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

Introduction:

The transition to university expose students to a range of changes whereby students have varying experiences adjusting to university life (Crede & Niehorster 2012). Collie, Holliman, & Martin (2017) noted that understanding adjustment to university required a comprehensive range of factors to understand the phenomenon. Baker and Siryk (1989), as cited in Lenz (2014) identified four distinct dimensions of adjustment: academic adjustment, social adjustment, personal–emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment. The current study is focused on exploring the dimensions of students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life, since: they are underexplored dimensions, particularly the Caribbean region; to provide an understanding of how these dimensions impact students adjustment to university, and as a corollary their achievement, could help universities provide more inclusive approaches, strategies, support and practices that cater to diversity in education. From an international stance, there is scant research attention focusing on specific dimensions of adjustment. Additionally, much consideration is given to international student’s adjustment to university so there is a gap related to national students’ adjustment. Therefore, this study can be adapted for the international context.

The purpose of the study is to understand first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine (UWISTA). Further, to assess the effects of the support UWISTA offer to assist students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life. Therefore, attention can be drawn to the gaps at UWISTA which may hinder students’ ability to adjust to university and impede students from being successful. Using this evidence to inform policy, UWISTA can promote equity and social justice in education by taking into consideration students’ social and psychological needs to provide the necessary support and mediate some of the challenges students encounter.

Research Questions:

1. What are the issues first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life at UWISTA?
2. In what ways do social and personal-emotional issues of first year undergraduate students affect their ability to adjust to university life at UWISTA?
3. What type of social and personal-emotional support is provided by the UWISTA to help first year undergraduate students adjust to university life at UWISTA?
4. To what extent does the support UWISTA offer assist first year undergraduate students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life?

Theoretical Framework

The model for analysing human adaptation to transition (Schlossberg, 1981) provides the theoretical understanding of individuals’ capacity to cope with changes. It outlined the key factors affecting individuals’ adjustment stemming from the transition to a new context. These factors refer to the characteristics of the transition, pre and post-transition environment and characteristics of the individual experiencing the transition. Further, the transition process relies on a range of coping skills to assist in adjustment including four sets of factors: situation, self, support and strategies (Anderson, Goodman and Schlossberg, 2012). Developing on this idea, the characteristic of the transition provides the basis for understanding undergraduate students’ perception of the transition to the university environment (situation). Moreover, pre and post-transition environment relates to social factors affecting the transition such as support from family, peers and the institution. Finally, the characteristic of the individual aligns with the psychological factors affecting adjustment to university (self). This theory examines the factors for understanding individuals’ adjustment to new situations and accounts for both psychological and social influences. In essence, Schlossberg’s theory of transition has provided the necessary theoretical framework to explain the association between psychosocial factors and social and personal-emotional adjustment to university.

World Heritage Site (WHS) is a meaningful place with outstanding universal values that all humans share (Jokilehto, 2008; Labadi, 2013). It is created by and contributes to individuals’ world views. Therefore, it should provide equal opportunity for everyone to learn from and contribute. However, there remains a gap in heritage education to cater for the need of multicultural individuals, especially since the nature of heritage education is to engage participants in the process of heritage-making (Harrison, 2012; Waterton and Watson, 2013; Smith, 2015).

On the one hand, influence from authorised heritage discourse makes the education content focus on materiality, static past, and an expert perspective but overlooks the intangible meanings, dynamic interaction, and personal feelings (Harrison, 2012; Labadi, 2013). Second, WHS reinforces nationalism in most counties under the political system (Winter, 2015; Ray, 2020). Lastly, the rise of tourism directs heritage education to please the mainstreaming market (Smith, 2015). To sum up, the influence of monumentalism, nationalism, and commercialism limit the development of multicultural education in WHS.

On the other hand, Even though the right to participate in cultural life is one of the fundamental human rights (UNESCO, 2019), and the engagement of the community has gradually gained notice in the last two decades (UNESCO, 2007), there remains to be a gap regarding refugee integration in heritage education. Refugees is one of the most vulnerable multicultural groups (UNHCR, 2007). Compared with others, including immigrants, sojourners, ethnic minorities, and indigenous people, their traumatic experiences, involuntary and unsettled conditions and cultural capital loss make them multiple challenges to participate in and enjoy the cultural events.

Therefore, to achieve the goal to engage refugees in heritage-making process, this research examines the underlying mechanism of heritage education while developing curriculums that cater to refugees’ needs through the lens of world view theory (Kearney, 1984), the dynamic World View Model demonstrates the process of shaping and shifting world view and the interrelationship between individuals and the environment, providing a holistic explanation of the interrelationship between visitors and the sites, which could be the backbone of developing the multicultural education model. Understanding and interpreting world heritage comes from individuals’ sensations and imaginative projection. World view plays a substantial role in engaging cultural events. Individual interpretations yield the meanings of heritages and meaning interpretation results from the dynamic shifting process of world views. Only by fulfilling the needs of meaning-making can heritage education integrate multicultural individuals.

The research employs action research as the approach. It recruits “New Scots (The Scottish Government, 2017)”, who are refugees and asylum seekers living in Scotland, as participants and initiates co- creation workshops as the intervention in The Hunterian, one of the preservation institutions. This study explores a world-view-oriented education model developed via action research at Antonine Wall. It identifies the challenges of WHS education from theoretical and practical perspectives; and designs an alternative education plan as an intervention. Then the workshop takes place in the Hunterian through the participation of New Scots (refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland). The action is evaluated by the degree that participants make meanings of the WHS. It expects to enhance the inclusion of WHS, ensuring the cultural rights of refugees, and pave the way for the future research on multicultural education.

The growing concern about teacher shortages in secondary education is shared, to different extents, by most OECD countries. The declining attractiveness of the teaching profession, and the subsequent difficulties in attracting and retaining teachers, have become a central concern for education policies. One of the solutions advocated to deal with this issue is to broaden the recruitment pool for teachers, notably by facilitating access to teaching for individuals joining the teaching profession after other professional experiences. In France, as well as in many OECD countries, these so-called 'second-career' teachers represent a growing proportion of applicants and successful candidates in recruitment competitions. These teachers have special characteristics and come from a wide variety of previous professional experiences.

In the international scholarly literature, teachers retraining to enter teaching have been considered a group to be studied separately from teachers with a more traditional background (“second career teachers” as opposed to “first career teachers”, or “traditional entrants”) (Berger & D’Ascoli, 2011). This distinction between these two populations is justified by their particularities (second-career teachers face unique challenges, they bring a particular skillset, they have a specific relationship with pupils and the profession, etc. (Tigchelaar et al., 2009 ; Tigchelaar et al., 2014 ; Dozolme, 2015).

However, the boundaries of this population (and thus its definition) vary greatly depending on the research under consideration. For instance, the minimum amount of years spent in the previous activity that is deemed necessary to be considered a second-career teacher varies from 2 years for Denave (Denave, 2015) to 3 years for Wilkins (Wilkins, 2017), or even 5 years for Négroni (Négroni, 2019).

Putting at a distance the binary division that is typically used, I hypothesize that the population of second career teachers can be heterogeneous in terms of profiles and is thus composed of several groups of individuals who differ in the combinations of experiences they had before joining teaching. Consequently, I question how many trajectory profiles can be found, and how they differ from each other.

The aim of this paper is therefore to highlight individual differences in a population initially thought to be homogeneous (Courgeau & Lelievre, 1989) (by separating first and second career teachers, one assumes some form of homogeneity in the 'second career' category). I propose to study this diversity by creating a typology of the study and professional path for French secondary school teachers to access teaching, using statistical methods of hierarchical classification in a software that is called R. The study is based on data about the career paths of a large population of tenured French teachers. This data was collected as part of a thesis in education sciences.

The result of this typology of the diversity of access path to education is a classification in five groups, ranging from the most linear to the least linear. The three categories with the least linear pathways comprise almost a third of the total population, thus confirming the importance of further taking this population into account. The presence of five classes clearly highlights a diversity in the spectrum of possible and existing trajectories. This result allows us to question and challenge the boundaries usually drawn between first and second career teachers. In addition, different motivations for joining the teaching profession are found depending on the previous trajectory. This debate about the limits of the 'second career' population, and on the diversity of teachers' careers, leads us to conclude that it is a crucial factor to take this into account when considering the integration, professional training and professionalization of these teachers with a particular profile.

In teacher education (TE), teacher identity development studies can be seen as an emerging study area. There is much already written and published in the related literature on teacher education programs however, there isn’t much on teacher education policy, contextual factors, and teacher identity formation in relation to teacher education institutions and habitus. Individuals have a central identity composed of all identity statuses and different sub-identities such as professional, parental, sexual, and ideological identities (Gür, 2014). Identities are combinations of knowledge, emotion, competencies, and experiences with regard to a social role, described in this study as teacher identity (Giddens, 1991). Identity formation in a professional domain is “an ongoing process of integration of the ‘personal’ and the ‘professional’ sides of becoming and being a teacher” (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004, p.113), and becoming a teacher involves the construction of a person’s identity (Danielewicz, 2001). Through an in-depth analysis of the program in relation to institutional habitus, this study explores the complexity of teacher identity formation in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduate context. It aims to portray the identity formation process of EFL prospective teachers in a public research university where the medium of instruction (MoI) is English in Turkey. In addition, the study uses Bourdieu's field theory and its toolkit as its theoretical perspective in examining the institutional habitus concerning teacher identity development.

Institutional habitus can significantly impact the formation of a teacher's identity because teachers, often internalize the expectations and beliefs of the institutions they belong to. The institutional habitus may influence how teachers view their roles and responsibilities in an undergraduate education program. It may affect their beliefs about teaching and learning, and their relationships with students and colleagues. This can shape how they develop their professional identities as teachers. Programs should also provide opportunities for teachers to engage with various perspectives and reflect on how these may impact their professional identities. As for term definitions, Bourdieu (1992) defines habitus, field, and doxa terms. Habitus is the learned set of preferences or dispositions by which a person orients to the social world. It is a system of ‘durable, transposable, cognitive ‘schemata or structures of perception, conception, and action’. Field is defined as a playground. Doxa: rules and (dis)positions in that playground (in the field).

Additionally, TE programs should provide ongoing support and professional development for teachers to help them continue to grow and evolve as professionals. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is embedded in the theory of action that questions how regular patterns of practices are formed in social and cultural locations. Social actors inscribe the “structured structures” and play a role in their transformation into “structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 53). Teacher educators and prospective teachers are agents in such a habitus, and they play a role in “structuring the structures” in their institutions. Habitus refers to the internalized dispositions and practices that individuals develop due to their socialization within a particular group or field. An individual's experiences, and interactions shape habitus, and perceptions within a group or field, influencing how they perceive and interact with the world around them. The research questions are as follows:

1. How is EFL teacher identity developed through the pre-service teacher education program in a public research university context in Turkey?

2. How do teacher educators foster the development of teacher identities in prospective EFL teachers?

3. How do prospective EFL teachers in the selected cases define their professional identity development process?

4. How does institutional habitus influence the identity development process of prospective EFL teachers?

Majority populations’ deep ignorance about the world's Indigenous peoples has raised concerns in communities around the globe (Godlewska et al., 2020; Ranta & Kanninen, 2019; Taylor & Habibis, 2020). The challenge of mainstream ignorance lies in its structural connection to transnational, oppressive processes: it is not a matter of accidental "absence of knowledge", but a certain kind of knowledge, an engagement to discourses that invalidate and resist Indigenous experiences and identities (Cook, 2018). Since recognizing constraints of our current knowledge and assumptions is crucial for the onset of decolonization (Shahjahan et al, 2022), and since teachers have a unique role in distribution of knowledge and ideas, this paper is set to examine (1) how mainstream ignorance and approaches to dismantling it are conceptualized in six countries engaged in Indigenous education; Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia; and (2) how do these conceptualizations reflect on Finnish teacher education (TE) and outline alternative ways for its development.

The Sámi, Indigenous people inhabiting territories known today as Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia, are the only Indigenous people in the area of the European Union. European ignorance about the Sámi, and the alarming consequences this ignorance holds, has been recognized by Sámi communities and multidisciplinary professionals (e.g., OKM, 2021). Initiatives have been launched to raise awareness of Indigenous issues not only within Sámi states, but also at the EU level – increasing knowledge in EU policymaking is considered instrumental in promoting reconciliation and better conditions for Sámi people (Prime Minister’s Office, 2021; Saami Council, 2022). Finland, one of the official Sámi states, has received notifications from the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance on its deep national ignorance regarding Sámi matters and calls to address the issue through education (ECRI, 2019). This deficiency, as much of the critique of Finnish education’s incongruity in addressing social injustices, is often overshadowed in the discussions by Finland’s image as a country of equal and exemplary education (see Kasa et al., 2023). Thus, it is relevant to analyze the position Finland's prestigious TE holds in relation to the concepts of ignorance from global contexts and neighboring Sámi states, Sweden and Norway.

The research problems are approached through a thematic synthesis, a type of systematic literature review (Thomas & Harden, 2008). The research is ongoing and more information on the results will be available at the time of the presentation. However, some expected results can be outlined. The review is likely to find cohesion in the transnational conceptualizations of ignorance, considering the phenomenon's foundations in universal, colonial socio-historical processes. The suggested approaches to dismantling ignorance are expected to include both concrete and abstract focus points. In terms of concrete actions, various institutions have, for example, hired more Indigenous staff in educational institutions to support indigenization (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2019). More abstract are the calls to address the ignorance-driven discomfort toward Indigenous topics, experienced by majority educators (e.g. Higgins et al., 2015).

Considering the goals of sustainable and equal systems binding all of Europe (UN, 2015), understanding of diversity has justly penetrated the guiding educational values in Finland. Making mainstream ignorance visible is a long-overlooked objective despite its great potential for reframing unsustainable structures, affecting Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike (Taylor & Habibis, 2020). Efforts to train educators to see and overcome these structures are an example of systematic means that can trickle down to the wider society (Rubin & Brown, 2019).

Throughout their careers teachers are involved in a continuous process of personal and professional development. This begins with a formal qualification in pedagogical and content specific knowledge and skills. As they develop their practice, this formal qualification is regularly supplemented with additional qualifications and learning experiences. Teacher Continuous Professional Development (CPD) refers to the breadth of activities undertaken by teachers to develop their expertise and skills to improve the learning environment for their students (Guskey 2000). It can include directed, planned activities with a specific aim as well as more organic learning opportunities and can occur both individually and collaboratively with others (Day 1999). Teacher Learning occurs across the broad spectrum of learning from formal, through non-formal to informal learning. Formal learning is typically institutionally sponsored, classroom-based and highly structured. Non-formal learning is generally structured; however it may not be classroom based. Informal learning, a category that includes incidental learning, may occur in institutions, but it is not typically classroom-based or highly structured, and control of learning rests primarily in the hands of the learner. Incidental learning, a subset of informal learning, almost always takes place, although people are not always conscious of it (Marsick and Watkins, 1990).

Wenger-Trayner et al (2015) posit that professional occupations are made up of a “complex landscape of different communities of practice – involved not only in practising the occupation, but also in research, teaching, management, regulation, associations and many other relevant dimensions” (p15). As a teacher progresses through their career, they will be involved to a greater, or lesser, extent in many of these aspects of their occupation, engaging in different communities of learning. Social learning networks play a significant role in how teachers navigate this landscape of practice comprising the broad spectrum of formal, non-formal and informal learning opportunities they encounter. One such social learning network is a Community of Inquiry, which provides a framework for cognitive, social and teacher presence within which teachers can critically reflect on, review, and make adjustments to their teaching practice to improve the learning environment for their students (Garrison, Anderson & Archer 2000).

In February 2017 it was announced that a new Leaving Certificate subject in Computer Science was to be fast-tracked for introduction in Ireland in September 2018. By February 2018, the specification was launched which outlined the curricular areas to be taught and the assessment structures to be utilised. The specification outlined an approach to teaching and learning and assessment strategies with a focus on self-directed learning and reflection (NCCA, 2018). The nature of the specification with a focus on student-centred pedagogical practices and real-life scenarios required a novel approach to teacher upskilling to develop competence and confidence within the teaching community. A professional development framework was put in place to support teachers who wished to teach the newly introduced subject. This framework provided skills development workshops as well as webinars, MOOCs and online collaboration and networking platforms which proved very beneficial to the teachers involved in the professional development (McGarr et al, 2020). This provided a Community of Inquiry within which the participating teachers could learn with, and from, each other.

This research study will investigate the informal, social learning undertaken by teachers through their participation in a professional development community of inquiry to upskill in Computer Science. It will, potentially, help to identify practices and strategies that facilitate informal, social learning adding to the diversity of educational opportunities for learners and helping to re-order the national, adult learning agenda by placing “informal and implicit processes in a much higher position than they have hitherto occupied” (Evans, 2019 p. 14).

Research Background

Boarding education is seen as a vital educational strategy for rural students as it could save students' time for commuting between home and school (Wang, et al., 2017), improve low-SES students’ academic performance (Foliano, 2019), save students from dangerous habits and behaviours (Bass, 2014), avoid child labour (Finnan, 2020), and help disadvantaged students gain cultural, social, and educational capital (Bass, 2014; Yao et al., 2015). Meanwhile, concerns are raised that boarding schools have negative impacts on boarders’ cultural identity, connection with their rural hometown, home language (Bass, 2014; Su et al., 2018; Finnan, 2020), wellbeing (Bass, 2014; Su et al., 2018). There are also other issues relating to rural students attending boarding schools that they lack of parental care while boarding in school and are undernutrition (Luo et al., 2009). In China, boarding school has become an open choice and popular among parents (Tan and Bodovski, 2020). However, few studies have drawn their attention to rural students attending boarding schools in China. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the educational provision and experiences of rural students attending rural and suburban boarding schools in middle China. The research questions are as follows.

Research Questions

Overarching question:

RQ1 How does the provision and experience of education for rural students compare in rural and suburban boarding schools?

Background RQs:

RQ2 What factors explain the parental choice of schools in rural and suburban China?

RQ3 Why do rural and suburban boarding schools educate children from rural areas?

Key questions:

RQ4 To what extent and in what ways do rural and suburban boarding schools include and/or exclude children from rural areas?

RQ5 How do children from rural areas experience inclusion/exclusion in rural and suburban boarding schools?

Comparative question:

RQ6 How do the findings in response to the questions above compare between rural and suburban boarding schools?

A plethora of research has been conducted on parental involvement in children’s education in developed countries (Epstein, 2018; Edwards & Alldred, 2000), but less is known regarding the same in the developing countries context (Kim, 2018). This research aspires to comprehend the viewpoint of rural children’s, parents, and teachers concerning parental involvement in children’s education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan. The strength of the study is to have a multi-informant holistic approach; collect data from children (focus group interviews), parents (narrative interviews), and teachers (In-depth interviews), and analyzed the data through narrative and thematic analysis techniques. The theoratical framework and the interview guidelines were mostly based on Epstein’s seminal framework (Epstein, 2018), supplemented by themes and topics found in previous studies concerning parental involvement (e.g., Kim, 2018; Bower & Griffin, 2011; Wilder, 2014).

Studies have shown that children’s schooling and their overall interests in education are best served when parents and teachers collaborate (e.g., Epstein, 2018;Wilder, 2014). Their joint efforts bring a variety of benefits, for instance, well-functioning cooperation increases families’ confidence, extends trust, builds a positive image of the school, and ultimately helps children’s education (Epstein, 2018). However, in Pakistan, the idea of parental involvement is relatively unknown owing to parents’ socioeconomic situations and the negligence of schools in motivating parents. The present study aims to investigate children’s, parents’, and teachers’ perceptions of parental involvement in a developing country. Overall the results broaden the understanding of the concept ‘parental involvement’ by presenting diverse, often context-related challenges to involvement and parents’ hope for a bright future for their children. Finally, based on the study results, we suggest measures for improvements, including better-trained teachers, help for low-income families, and more suitable and equitable ways of involving parents in their children’s education.

Studies carried out in numerous national contexts suggest that students from socio-economically impoverished backgrounds are associated with academic underachievement (Filmer & Pritchett, 1999). Some underprivileged students, however, manage to perform outstanding educational outcomes despite their adverse background. The dynamic process in which these students negotiate, adapt to, and cope with their circumstances is often referred to as ‘resilience’ (Howard et al., 1999).

During the 1990s, researchers started to explore resilience in the context of education, that is ‘academic resilience’. Accordingly, the notion of academic resilience is described as performing relatively well in school despite an adverse background (Alva, 1991; Wang et al., 1994). Several studies have found that academic resilience is associated with certain protective factors, both related to the individual and their environment (home, school, community), that modify or influence a person’s responses to adversities (Jowkar et al., 2014). Such factors are important to identify in order to understand how suitable support can be provided in order to create inclusive and equitable educational opportunities for all.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education research has a long tradition of engaging with inequalities, often related to the performance and participation of students from different genders, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds. A variety of conceptual tools have been applied to understand the uneven performance and participation in science, such as interest and taste (Anderhag et al., 2015), science capital (Archer et al., 2015) and science identity (Danielsson et al., 2023). There is also a rich literature that seeks to adapt science education in order to enhance the sense of belonging in the discipline for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Barton & Tan, 2009). Such teaching interventions are often characterized by how they seek to bridge students’ life-worlds and science by, for example, eliciting and valuing students’ funds of knowledge. Other studies look at how minoritized students in STEM responded to challenges and develop their mathematical identities and pursue STEM career (Joseph et al., 2020). Consequently, STEM education research has been deeply invested in improving the teaching and learning for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Still, with a few notable exceptions (Ferguson & Martin‐Dunlo, 2021), this has not been conceptualized in terms of developing students’ academic resilience. We posit that an increased conversation between STEM education research seeking to improve the educational experience of disadvantaged students and research about academic resilience would be beneficial to both lines of research. Since the findings from the resilience research field are largely extracted from quantitative studies, the knowledge of how resilience is developed through the interplay between the individual and their environment is sparse.

The aim of this paper is to contribute a multifaceted exploration of an educational trajectory from childhood characterized by circumstances to doing a PhD in mathematics. The study is grounded in an interest of understanding how academic resilience be conceptualized in a way that allows for STEM-specific disciplinary aspects to be taken into account. More specifically, we ask:

- What resources (at individual/school/family/community level) were accessed by the student in order to allow for a successful educational trajectory in STEM?

We will present our preliminary results from a pilot case study of a scholar coming from Southeast Asia and now doing PhD in Mathematics at a Swedish university.

Improving pedagogical practices has become a priority in the European context for both universities and governments (Lalle & Bonnafous, 2019). Eutopia, one of 41 consortia of European higher education institutions created and funded by the European Union since 2019, initially brought together 6 institutions and expanded to 10 by 2021. Each consortium has set a series of priorities in order to initiate exchanges and promote joint work. The priorities set by the Eutopia alliance are mainly focused on student-centred approaches, diversity and inclusion. In this respect, academic innovation for teacher education is an important topic.

This communication focuses on the mechanisms for improving teaching practice in six universities of the European University Alliance Eutopia, and is part of a broader research for a doctoral thesis on "Lecturer Education".

The training and support for the teaching staff can lead to changes in conceptions (Demougeot-Lebel & Perret, 2011; Gerard, 2016), but there is no evidence of changes in practice in the short (Ménard et al., 2017) and long term (Ménard et al., 2020). Some training specifications have been studied (Stes et al., 2010) making it possible to determine best periods and methodologies as well as minimum durations. But most of these studies make the same observation: differences, particularly cultural and institutional ones, can influence the effect of training and thus its results.

For this reason, our research aims to explore the pedagogical development of university faculty (Demougeot-Lebel & Lison, 2022), articulating local (departments and universities), regional, and national levels.

Whether they are public or private institutions, the universities studied have a great deal of autonomy but are nevertheless guided by the orientations of national or regional governance. We need to determine at what level the obligation to train exists, if at all, for example, whether it is a legal or a local obligation. Similarly, we would like to know whether training in higher education pedagogy is taken into account in the careers of teaching staff. The different statuses of teaching staff therefore should be questioned. Similarly, the question arises of a teaching reference framework that could lead to a certification recognised beyond the local structure. And more concretely, what resources and means have been implemented for this training at local or even national level? Finally, within the framework of the Bologna process, many elements have been put in place, whether to harmonize diplomas or to assess the quality of teaching and training curricula. European alliances aim at developing internationalization of teaching between universities. The question is, does it lead those universities to harmonize their practices by relying on European reference systems.

This is why we felt it necessary to compare these different contexts in order to describe the ecosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1981) where teachers evolve: from the national or regional governance (macro level) to the institution (meso level), including the department in charge of teacher training, to the professional environment of the teaching staff (micro level), both during and outside the training courses.

At these different levels, the capability approach (Fernagu, 2017) aims to explore the resources that can be mobilized by teachers, such as the training offered by the institution at the meso level, but also the conversion factors that promote or hinder the mobilization of these resources. According to this theory, it is important to explore the teachers’ freedom to choose the resources that correspond to their context, their background and their wishes, as well as their training’s assessment. For instance, they should be able to choose the course and/or the kind of reflective writing they want to be evaluated on.

The European Students’ Union (ESU) was one of the institutions participating in the formation of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the

European Higher Education Area (ESG) in 2005, which were amended in 2015(1) and are still used to this day. The ESGs serve as a core value of the Bologna process, assuring that the accredited institutions adhere to the same norms in higher education, and provide high quality of education across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) member states. Based on the publication Bologna with Students Eyes 2020(3), it is visible that students are not nearly recognised enough in different aspects of higher education, however, in terms of Quality Assurance (QA), constant progress is evident. Additionally, since the launch of the Bologna Declaration in 1999, internationalisation has become one of the main goals of higher education, promoting diversity and shared knowledge cross-sector, impacting QA practices as well.

In 2009, ESU formed a Quality Assurance Student Experts’ Pool (QA Pool)(2), with the main goal to train, educate and nominate students as QA experts in various international external QA processes under partnering institutions. Since then, many changes happened within the EHEA to involve, not only checking educational standards in teaching, learning assessments and accessibility of higher education, but assuring internationalisation, diversity and inclusion as well. The ESGs mention diversity as one of their four main principles for QA in EHEA, and mention it can be achieved through a “student-centred approach to learning and teaching, embracing flexible learning paths and recognising competencies gained outside formal curricula. Higher education institutions themselves also become more diverse in their missions, mode of educational provision and cooperation, including growth of internationalisation, digital learning and new forms of delivery.” According to these principles, ESU has also changed its internal policy on social dimension, and the QA Pool amended its practices to assure the selection based on diversity rather than merit only.

In line with that, our mission is to analyse how ESU has, over the course of 14 years, improved its policies on diversity within the organisation and the QA Pool, and whether this is reflected in practice. Concretely, our research questions are:

Do ESU QA Pool’s policies assure the diversity of student experts in QA compared to other European higher education organisations with similar practices?

Is the diversity of the nominated QA student experts for reviews correlated with the changes in ESU QA Pool’s diversity policies?

Do student QA experts find that the European QA systems are diverse enough?

We aim to answer these questions by quantitatively analysing our QA Pool database and testing it against the changes in the diversity criteria for the experts’ selection. Additionally, we plan on doing qualitative research on available resources within the organisation to compare the diversity policies and practices of ESU in nominating experts compared to the bodies who also nominate experts for international external evaluations, such as The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), The European University Association (EUA) and the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE).

Introduction

This paper aims to unpack Chinese students' experiences in an international joint university located in China - Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU). International joint university is one of the types of transnational higher education (TNHE), and the latter is defined as "the mobility of an education program or higher education institution/provider between countries” (Knight, 2016, p. 36), which is considered as an important symbol of the internationalisation of HE in China. Other types of TNHE are mainly unilateral establishments (Wilkins, 2018). Therefore, joint universities have equal parent institutions and potentially more space for internationalisation to be negotiated and constructed without being prescribed. Compared to joint universities, these unilateral institutions potentially have more limited space for students to participate in constructing internationalisation. However, there is limited research on students’ motivations and engagements in an internationalised environment where they have the space for co-construction. This study examines the reciprocal relationship between an institution-constructed internationalised environment and students’ agency, enriching understanding towards the dynamics in which internationalised aspects could be perceived and utilised.

Current literature mainly focuses on the particular type of TNHE, namely, the international branch campus. The individual situations of students are mainly examined from their relatively, and rather unexpectedly, low performance in Gaokao (Chinese national entrance examination), which prevents them from getting admitted to their first choice. Low performance in Gaokao acts as both a forceful push from domestic institutions and a pull from TNHE entry standards (Liu et al., 2021; Li, 2020). TNHE also attracts these students as a stepping stone to regaining entry to elite Chinese institutions (Fang and Wang, 2014), as well as a second chance to “make up" for their failure to obtain an undergraduate degree at one of China's top universities (Xie, 2022). However, such connotations of stepping stones and compromise may contradict with the more or less elite positioning of TNHE in China, therefore, this study attempts to link the personal motivations to the possible influence of institutions’ construction of internationalisation.

In terms of the internationalised encounter, current literature has examined the provision of English-medium instruction (EMI) in TNHE since the trend of teaching non-language subjects in English has become a significant indicator of internationalisation. EMI is defined as “​the use of the English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself) in countries or jurisdictions where the first language of the majority of the population is not English” (Macaro et al., 2018, p. 37). In reality, teaching and learning in a non-native language can cause considerable, and often unnecessary, challenges to both teachers and students. Besides, with the overall tendency for research on TNHE examining EMI, there is an overlook of other internationalised aspects, e.g., the intercultural environment (Xie, 2022). Gu and Lee (2019) talk about how students strategically navigate learning resources but are still confined to language aspects. Therefore, this study brings these aspects together and explores how Chinese students actively manage expectations by engaging with various international aspects of TNHE.

This study selects XJTLU as a case to examine its students’ engagement in internationalisation. Since the study focuses on students’ engagement, XJTLU’s emphasis on the ongoing construction of internationalisation is perceived as a meaningful lens to examine the students’ receptions of and their interactions with institutional construction. XJTLU, therefore, is hypothesised to be a negotiated space which allows students to have more opportunities to co-construct internationalisation. This study aims to answer the following research questions:

1. How does internationalisation influence Chinese undergraduate students’ decision to study in a joint venture institution?

2. How do Chinese undergraduate students’ lived experiences of internationalisation in a joint venture institution (mis-)match with their initial expectations?

Across the European Union, countries are reporting alarming levels of “education poverty”, and many education systems have become less successful in ensuring that all students acquire all the skills that they need to thrive in the 21^st century economies (Herrera-Sosa et al., 2018). At the individual level, relational educational poverty manifests as a lack of formal qualifications, which severely restricts participation in a number of areas of social life (Glaesser, 2022). When discussing young people’s skills development and learning outcomes in the context of formal education, school engagement is a centrally important concept.

Generally speaking, school engagement refers to the quality of students’ connection or involvement with schooling (Skinner et al., 2009). In scholarly literature, school engagement is treated as a multi-dimensional concept consisting of cognitive (e.g., investment in learning), emotional (e.g. sense of belonging and positive feelings), and behavioural (e.g., participation in class) aspects (e.g., Blondal & Adalbjarnardottir, 2012) each influencing the others (Virtanen, 2016). School engagement is essential to learning: it correlates with higher achievement and reduces the likelihood of dropping out of school (Fredricks et al., 2004). Higher level of school engagement is associated with better academic competence and performance, staying in school longer and participating in further education, fewer problem behaviours, psychological and social difficulties. Thus, it is highly important for learning outcomes and educational pathways, but also for more general wellbeing (e.g. Virtanen 2016). Moreover, student engagement is associated with a lack of adjustment problems, such as low levels of delinquency involvement, depression, and substance abuse (e.g., Li & Lerner, 2011).

One persistent research finding regarding school engagement – as well as achievement – is the gender difference with girls on average displaying higher levels of school engagement and scoring better than boys (Van Houtte, 2020). However, much less is known about whether the mechanisms of school engagement work the same way for both genders; for instance, whether family’s socioeconomic background (the effects of which on engagement have also been established in several studies; e.g., Linnakylä & Malinen, 2008) is associated in the same way with boys and girls’ engagement, or whether the level of engagement contributes in the same way to their achievement levels.

In this paper, the focus is on the school engagement of Finnish lower secondary school students, particularly on whether there are differences in the associations of school engagement with family socioeconomic status and parental education as well as academic achievement and educational aspirations based on students’ gender. In other words, the study aimed to answer the following three research questions:

1) Is the association of family background with school engagement mediated through parents’ investment in child’s schooling and their aspirations for child’s future education among lower secondary school students?

2) Does school engagement predict students’ academic achievement and educational aspirations?

3) Are there gender differences in the ways in which family background is associated with students’ school engagement or in the ways school engagement predicts students’ academic achievement and educational aspirations?

As school engagement is argued to be more malleable than educational achievement (Virtanen, 2016), it has the potential to narrow the gap between low- and high-achieving students (Woolley & Bowen, 2007) and even to lessen socio-economic disparities in education (Abbott-Chapman et al., 2014; Gorard & See, 2011). Thus, the better we understand the factors contributing to and stemming from school engagement among different groups of students in different educational contexts, the better are our chances to reach these goals of narrowing achievement gaps and socio-economic disparities in Europe and beyond by promoting students’ engagement in schooling – which highlights also the significance of this study.

Peer and gender violence in educational spaces is a worrying reality (1). Specifically, high schools are unsafe spaces for many students and members of the community, especially for vulnerable people, such as women or LGBTI+ youth, who suffer violence in very different forms. For instance, 25% of young women experienced digital violence in the past five years (2); and most LGBT cannot express themselves freely because they suffer more harassment (3). Ending this violence is a European and international priority, as the Fundamental Rights Agency and the Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 4 state.

For decades, a line of research on the eradication of gender-based violence has analysed three ideal models of masculinity. The first two belong to a traditional model: first, there are boys and men of Traditional Dominant Masculinities (DTM) attitudes and behaviours of disdain, taunt, dominance, superiority; among these DTM there are all those who perpetrate violence; second, and in a complementary way, there are those non-violent boys who nonetheless lack self-confidence and strength to step up to violence, following a model of Oppressed Traditional Masculinity (OTM). Research has found that there is a social dominant coercive discourse (4) that passes on the idea that dominant boys and men who follow a DTM model are exciting and fun, while, in parallel, pressures people so that egalitarian men are seen as boring. However, research also recognises the existence of a third model, New Alternative Masculinities (NAM): these are egalitarian, courageous, strong, confident and attractive boys and men, who have a transformative role in the prevention and eradication of gender-based violence because they are brave to stand up against injustice and besides desire and therefore create free, safe, and exciting relationships wherever they go (5).

These NAM boys and egalitarian boys and people in general are promoted in dialogic educational spaces (6), where the type of person who is valued are those who help others and show solidarity. Dialogic gatherings is a Successful Educational Action identified by the INCLUD-ED project of the 6th European Framework program which consists in the previous reading of a text by each participant with the aim of sharing at least one paragraph with the group explaining why they have chosen it, after which an open dialogue is collectively created. Some impacts of dialogic gatherings include improvement in relationships or in academic results (7, 8). Among the different types of dialogic gatherings, the feminist or scientific dialogic gatherings differ in that the text provided needs to show scientific rigour (9, 10).

Within this framework, the present research arose from the question: what impact can dialogic gatherings on New Alternative Masculinities and overcoming violence have on a group of boys and their environment? We found a gap in the literature about this educational action, which has never been investigated worldwide.

To this end, a high school teacher, along with a researcher, decided to start a voluntary dialogic gathering in a high school of Valencia, Spain, in which boys from Secondary Education (from 12 to 17 years old) participate. The moderator of the discussion group is this teacher, who is close to them and with scientific knowledge about dialogic gatherings, NAM, and preventive socialisation of gender violence. This group has met over two periods for the last year every 2-3 weeks to debate different texts related to NAM and the prevention of gender-based violence extracted from The Feminist Diary (El Diario Feminista) (11), whose articles always have a rigorous and scientific evaluation.

The research we present assumes that we are living at a global level an agonistic moment (Mouffle, 2013) for the dispute to establish the meanings that will be considered hegemonic (Gramsci, 1995), where gender and feminist discourses are being central.

While the feminist project (Walby, 2011) and its desire to change everything (Gago, 2019), during the last decade, have been central in the restructuring of social relations that advocate for a democratic transformation in a way that produces effects on state public policies, the reactionary ghosts of the past have once again taken on materiality through increasingly sophisticated devices that produce and reproduce neopatriarchal and neocapitalist subjectivities and discourses (Brown, 2019).

According to Mark Fisher (2014) the overlapping of past eras is now so pervasive that we do not even notice it. The politics of nostalgia (Tanner, 2021) seek to renew the old through the disguise of the ecstasy of novelty. In this context, the slow cancellation of the future (Fisher, 2014) solidifies the distribution of social inequalities.

Education and educational organisations interest us as contexts of transmission of the social world we live in (Arendt, 1996), allowing us to understand how the macro level intervenes in the micro, and vice versa. Among the different educational organisations, the context of Vocational Training and, specifically, the professional family of Vehicle Transport and Maintenance in Valencia (Spain) is chosen in order to understand the ways in which society distributes, classifies and orders that knowledge, physical and symbolic, which it considers valuable, in a way that generates different social groups (Bernstein, 1990).

The vocational family of Vehicle Transport and Maintenance, historically and culturally associated with working-class masculinities, has been used to analyse the characteristics of gender and social class relations The main research question is: what and how are the ideals and representations of gender held by young people studying Vocational Training in Transport and Vehicle Maintenance in Valencia (Spain)?

Out theory is based on gender as a regulatory apparatus of society that operates within social practices by defining the parameters by which some subjects are considered intelligible and others unintelligible in a given context (Butler, 1990). Masculinities are one of the possibilities of performativising gender, being linked to the history of institutions and economic structures. Following Raewyn Connell (1993), they are a social position, a place in gender relations, which has effects on social practices, culture, bodies and subjectivities.

We understand that those who access Vocational Training in Vehicle Transport and Maintenance are learning to be - or to performativise - a certain social position that involves not only learning manual and technological skills, but also a pedagogical form of cultural assimilation and a form of self-representation (Rajan-Rankin, 2017) that materialises in the social life and bodies of young people at the liminal moment of transition to the world of work in the automotive industry in a historical context of deindustrialisation (Nayak, 2003) and crisis in the sector.

Under the neoformulations of patriarchal capitalism and in the face of the loss of control over the production of existence, many young people are left with only the neoliberal fantasy of a future projection where they have access to material and symbolic goods, while at the same time they are wary of being lucky enough to find a paid job. In the words of Michael Kimmel (2019, p. 111):

"(...) in a way, their bloated expectations may be a response to the very different economic climate in which they're coming of age (...) they know that corporations are no longer loyal to their employees (...) So why should they be loyal to the company?"

1. Introduction

Title: “Local Matters a Social Justice case study of commonality and contextualization”

Louisa Dawes, University of Manchester

Carl Emery, University of Manchester

2. Social Justice in the Scottish Context

Title: “Education, languages and internalisation: Bridging the local and global”

Deniz Ortactepe Hart, University of Glasgow

Title: “Art and law in Migration: art practices for social change and access to Justice'”

Pinar Aksu, University of Glasgow

3. Table top activity

Discussion and reflections on social justice; commonalities and contextualisation across Europe, based on the following questions:

• Drawing from your knowledge, what are the specific features of Social Justice in your country?
• What issues are currently being addressed?
• What are the key themes emerging?

Moderation: Louisa Dawes, University of Manchester; Carl Emery, University of Manchester

4. Q&A running into a short pause/networking opportunity

When diversity in education is discussed, the subjects focussed on are usually the student population in universities, schools, youth organizations etc. and the challenges educators face, when dealing with the diverse classrooms. Less research is done on the question, what it means for scholars, teachers and educators who are themselves marked as ‘diverse’ to work in an environment, where most of their colleagues are white, able-bodied, speak the national language as their first language, and do not have any own or family-based experience with migration. Drawing on Pillay (2015) it can be argued that: “Being at the heart of epistemic violence, the university is [...] not simply [...] a conveyor belt of automatons, or robots or ideological zombies of the dominant interests and order. The modern university is also that site of constant invention, contestation, negotiation, subversion and potentially, reinvention.” Hence, the university being a significant site where social discourses are formed and influenced, it is vital to guarantee a maximum of participation of different groups in society ̶ and especially of those who are marginalized. To understand how participation is possible or what the obstacles are, it is not only important to identify discriminatory practices the marginalized academics face, but also to identify strategies to build safer spaces inside.

The topic is not a new one; however, most of the existing research is related to the US-American and Canadian context (cf. Niemann & Gutiérrez y Muhs, Gabriella, Gonzalez, Carmen G., 2020; Settles et al., 2018; Willie-LeBreton, 2016) and therefore, does not reflect the situation of educators in the German speaking environment. Even though a few studies exist in Germany, Austria and other European countries, particularly in England, their focus is more on the experiences of discrimination inside academia and less on the strategies of resistance (cf. Ahmed, 2012; Akbaba et al., 2022; Arghavan et al., 2019; Caceres et al., 2017; Puwar, 2004). That is why the project to be presented: “Scholars of Color in the German and Austrian Acadamia” pays special interest on questions of resilience and resistance (cf. Ahmed et al., 2022).

Based on the theoretical background of post- and decolonial approaches that aim at intervening in the epistemic violence and exclusion(re-)produced in westernized academia (Bhambra et al., 2018; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), the central questions asked in the study are: “How do scholars of color deal with their various experiences of discrimination and which strategies and resources they come up with to stay inside academia?” Even though the main focus is on discrimination through racism, other forms of structural discrimination like (hetero-)sexism, ableism, linguicism and classism are taken into account from an intersectional perspective (Crenshaw, 1991).

An important aspect of understanding university as a space where counter-hegemonic knowledge, resistance and resilience can be formed, is to understand the university classroom as an interface to society. Working with students means to have the possibility to teach them a critical diversity literacy (Steyn, 2015) that they will continue to develop and use outside the constraints of the academic institutions. Therefore, for the study to be presented, the criteria for choosing interview partners were not only that they should be teachers of color with teaching experience inside a university in a German speaking environment but that they also consider a critical approach to power-relations in the disciplines they are teaching.

I am a mature age South Asian woman currently undertaking a second PhD at a university in Victoria, Australia. My qualitative study straddles education and sociology, broadly focusing on the academic journeys and experiences of inclusion and exclusion of women of colour within Victorian universities. I have unpacked the data collected to critically reflect upon my own biases and reactions to the semi-structured interviews I undertook with the study participants, who like me are migrant women academics of colour from Commonwealth countries.

Fieldwork was undertaken during the pandemic (December 2020-21) and ongoing lockdowns in Melbourne. The contextual background was of Australian universities announcing almost daily redundancies. Several of the participants expressed their precarity, echoing my own fears of loss of work and income. Some clearly expected to be made redundant while others were more cautious in voicing their concerns. A couple of participants had been made redundant and claimed racial discrimination; further stoking my fears of being excluded as a woman of colour within Australian academe.

As a qualitative researcher I am mindful of the tense and vibrant understanding of intersubjectivity inherent in the practice of personal, epistemological, and feminist self-reflexivity (Palaganas 2017 et. al.). Reflexivity is not a straightforward uncomplicated process (Koopman et al 2020) requiring comprehension of the politics and environment surrounding the researcher (Hand 2003). Acknowledging reflexivity as “paying attention to and engaging with one’s own experience and noticing one’s movement of thought over an extended period of time, and by doing so noticing how this in turn affects one’s practice with others” (Warwick & Board 2012, p.4), I accept Pollner’s (1991 as cited in Warwick & Board) emphasis on the intimate connection between reflexivity and researcher experience, and consideration of such practice as unsettling and discomforting.

I identified with my study participants’ experiences in diverse ways, not just as an academic. Allen’s (2004) exhortation that the actual practice of reflexivity avoids tick boxing of academic rigour encouraged me to address the effects of this reflexivity on my own positioning as a minoritised academic of colour in a neoliberal space. Yet I am aware that my socio-economic and citizenship status, education, and able bodied self, render me less vulnerable than some participants.

The politics of my location inveigles itself while ‘doing’ reflexivity from a feminist standpoint. Researchers have concomitantly advocated caution in academic women tending to speak for Others (Alcoff 2009) yet insisted that their voices cannot be silenced. As a woman of colour working within the Australian tertiary sector, I designate myself as an inside researcher (Wohlfart 2020) yet am conscious how similar yet dissimilar I am to my study participants.

I exercise intersubjectivity turning the critically reflexive lens inwards in relation to the impact of my research. This leads to complicated queries on my own minority status. Do I measure my minoritisation and those of the study participants by social class, caste, race, gender, citizenship etc. and if so, how? Concomitantly where do my own pre-conceptions fit into this? Through autoethnography and journalling I work my own learning/unlearning in the process of conducting my fieldwork. As Finlay (2002) states, “we no longer seek to eradicate the researcher’s presence – instead subjectivity in research is transformed from a problem to an opportunity” (p.212). The current dilemma is how to ‘do’ reflexivity rather than why. However, researchers agree that the practice of the same is ambiguous, often a slippery slope and rarely uncomplicated being essentially subjective, relational, and dialogic (Gemignani 2017).

Despite the increase in decolonising Western universities, pedagogies and curriculum initiatives, the voices of participants from the Global South are still at the periphery, searching for a space to get involved in such efforts. Decolonial theory and literature have widely acknowledged the need to include perspectives of marginalised groups from the Global South in projects of decolonisation (Hickling-Hudson, Mathews & Woods, 2003; Mignolo, 2009; Santos, 2014; Smith, 1999; Spivak, 1994). However, there are limited examples of such practices. This paper aims to tackle epistemic injustice in the decolonising efforts by highlighting the voices from the Global South.

In this paper, we deconstruct an Erasmus Mundus programme, International Masters in Adult Education for Social Change (IMAESC), taught in four European countries over the course of two years. The programme first began in 2016 and has enrolled more than 100 students, most of whom are from the Global South. We examine IMAESC as a decolonial project through the hegemonic and subaltern lenses and analyse the curriculum, pedagogical approaches, and experiences of the participants of this programme. We do so not only through our own experiences as adult learners, researchers and practitioners but also through the inclusion of perspectives of our peers from the Global South.

This article further includes the testimonies of our educators in Global North institutions who have designed and implemented this international programme with a decolonising approach. In this paper, we explore to what extent this critical adult education programme successfully provided an experience of decolonised higher education and the challenges faced by the participants and the educators involved.

In Norwegian classrooms, as in other European classrooms, the number of multilingual pupils has risen. These individuals have a varied background, are from different parts of the world and represent different ethnicities, cultures and languages. They bring experiences and skills to school that are valuable sources for their own learning, for their fellow pupils, the school as a whole and society. For multilingual pupils, qualified bilingual teachers can be a potential support for academic and social improvement (Lillejord & Børte, 2017). The bilingual teachers’ competence can also help to level the differences between minority and majority pupils, and to maintain linguistic diversity (Banks, 2020). Berthele (2019) claims that the most common way of thinking about language is still dominated by monolingual categories, and thus bilingual teachers’ support is an important educational factor to add to a multilingual perspective.

Norway has established a bilingual education programme to qualify bilingual teachers for a profession in school. For 25 years the University of Agder has offered courses to bilingual teachers, and this has evolved into a teacher education programme awarding a Bachelor’s degree. While several hundred students have been awarded a degree, little attention has been given to the content of this education programme and role of the bilingual teacher in an educational context.

The focus of the research presented in this paper is on the intentions of the bilingual teacher education programme and its content. Our aim is to investigate and discuss the qualifications a bilingual teacher should have to support multilingual pupils in achieving learning outcome, feeling motivated and experiencing a sense of belonging (Banks, 2020).

Bourdieu (1991) conceptualises linguistic practices as forms of symbolic capital, which opens an analytical space from which to study the discourses on linguistic practices that are legitimised in education. Using this conceptual framework, we can study the way in which a monolingual versus a multilingual horizon influences the intentions behind and content of the analysed documents, the teacher education programme and, not least, the implications and socio-political elements this has in the light of the efforts to satisfy the needs of multilingual pupils.

Overarching research question:

In what way does a bilingual teacher education programme contribute to supporting the academic and social development of multilingual pupils?

Throughout the last few decades, in Europe, social reality has greatly increased in complexity, and culturally diverse schools have become a reality (Bugno 2018). It is essential that formal education enhances its sensitivity and competence regarding cultural diversity in order to facilitate inclusion and well-being, as well as widespread school success and achievement (Alleman-Ghionda, Agostinetto & Bugno, 2021). Thus, teachers play a crucial role in this process.

The beliefs that teachers hold are relevant for three main reasons: they filter knowledge, influence the definition of a problem, and guide their intentions and actions (Civitillo, Juang, 2019).

According to Fives, Barnes, Chiavola, SaizdeLaMora, Oliveros & Mabrouk-Hattab (2019), beliefs' nature refers to how it is conceptualized, especially in regard to the relationship between knowledge and beliefs. Several types of belief content exist, such as general beliefs (i.e. teaching and learning) and more specific ones (i.e. about diverse student groups). Gay (2015) describes research in the area of teachers' beliefs and attitudes toward cultural diversity as both problematic and promising. Indeed, because of their ambivalent nature, it is possible to detect "a significant gap in the body of knowledge" (p. 344). Moreover, these authors affirm that teacher educators should consider the importance of teacher beliefs on teacher learning when designing and implementing learning experiences for preservice and in-service teachers.

In Italy, in order to become a primary teacher is necessary to enroll in the degree course in Primary Teacher Education: it is a combined Bachelor's and Master's degree 5 years long. One of the fundamental first year’s courses is Intercultural Education.

In the Italian context, Intercultural Education is in general understood as a pedagogical project inherent to the multicultural environment and oriented to four main proposes human rights, social justice, decentralization, and dialogue and mediation.

At the University of Padova the aim of the course is to provide the fundamental elements for understanding and framing the multicultural dimension from an educational perspective. The lectures intend to orientate towards the development of an initial intercultural competence. Moreover, the main cognitive and reflective elements relate on one hand to the theoretical constructs of intercultural education, and on the other, to the implications of cultural diversity at school.

Given these premises, the paper presents a pilot study aimed at investigating the beliefs of future teachers on the concept of cultural diversity before and after the Intercultural Education course.

The pilot research questions are: how do future teachers represent cultural diversity? What are their beliefs of cultural diversity? (How) do they evolve/change? Therefore, the main focuses are 2: future teachers' beliefs of cultural diversity and their representations.

Increasing migration in combination with social problems have led to concerns about social cohesion. Schools with diverse student populations may provide for positive structural conditions for social cohesion in diverse societies. The paper aims to examine how teachers contribute to social cohesion among students in terms of the three dimensions as described by Schieffer and Van der Noll (2017): (1) the quality of social relations (including social networks, trust, acceptance of diversity, and participation), (2) identification with the social entity, and (3) orientation towards the common good (sense of responsibility, solidarity, compliance to social order).

The study focusses on the role of the teacher by asking two research questions:

1. What are teacher practices with regard to promoting social cohesion among students in culturally diverse classrooms, in terms of social relations, group identification, and students’ orientation toward the common good, and how do teachers account for these practices?

2. In what ways are teacher practices related to the diversity of the student population?

By teaching practices, we refer to behaviour in terms of teaching methods, didactics, or work formats, but also in terms of interpersonal relationships both between teachers and students, and among students. Social cohesion is relevant in any classroom, but specifically so in multicultural classrooms, given the increasing diversity, and potential accompanying processes of tension and inequity, hence the second research question on diversity.

A qualitative study was conducted using interviews with teachers and students and observations in two urban secondary schools with diverse student populations. Students, teachers, and school staff from the selected classes from three classes in each school of the second year of secondary education participated. Groups of 4 or 5 students per class were invited for a focus group interview. The homeroom teacher of each of the participating classes was also interviewed. A content analysis was conducted combining a deductive approach in the first step and an inductive approach in further steps (Cresswell & Poth, 2016).

The results showed that most teacher practices seem to address the Schiefer and Van der Noll dimension of social relations. Teachers mostly invested in their own relationship with students, for example by paying individual attention to students, such as helping individual students, asking about home and using home languages.

The main themes in the dimension identification and belonging were bridging home and school, and group formation. The existence of different subgroups in schools and classrooms were considered to be acceptable, as long as all students belong to one or two subgroups.

Dominant in the dimension of the common good were teacher practices with regard to rules, the variety of ways in which rules were created and interpreted, and whether violations were condoned or punished. Fairness was also a topic that surfaces when the rules were discussed.

The three dimensions of Schiefer and Van der Noll could clearly be distinguished in our data, but there was a strong inter-relatedness and therefore we argue that the dimensions should be considered in tandem. Furthermore, because there seemed to be little reflection on relationships among peers and creating a community as well as on the meaning of diversity in schools, we also suggest that more explicit reflection by teachers on the three dimensions of social cohesion in diverse schools is needed. If schools are committed to strengthening social cohesion, they need to consider the three dimensions alongside each other and reflect on the role of diversity. Building up more explicit teacher knowledge and skills to develop and implement practices that strengthen socially cohesive classrooms, may ultimately help to address societal concerns with regard to social cohesion.

Three papers:

Paper 1: Tackling education inequality: what works in London schools

Paper 2: How the British Educational Research Association (BERA) is addressing issues of equality and diversity in its governance structures.

Paper 3: Challenges and Opportunities for Diversity within Education Research.

In Paper 1, the challenges that face educational policymakers today, are not how to raise achievement, but how to tackle educational inequality and diversity. A body of research evidence shows that inequality in educational outcomes has grown, and a large number of children are underachieving at school (Hutchinson et al, 2019; Demie, 2019). There are longstanding achievement gaps in England associated with socioeconomic status and ethnic background. Although overall educational attainment for Black minorities increased steadily between 2004 and 2011 during the London challenge period, this trend is reversing in more recent time, and Black Caribbean and Pakistani pupils are still at the bottom of the league when compared to white British and their peers. This research paper explores the lessons from London schools in driving school improvement and addressing inequalities. Three research questions guided this research: firstly, what does the data tell us about the performance of London schools by ethnic background over the period?, secondly, what were the strategies for tackling inequality and driving school improvement of ethnic minorities pupils?, and thirdly, what are the lessons for tackling inequality?

Paper 2 analyses challenges facing many organisations today and the need for their leaders and people in their governance structures to reflect the profile of their members and potentially society at large, in relation to factors such as gender, ethnicity and disability. This is the express desire of the British Educational Research Association (BERA), which would hope that the diversity profile of its governing bodies, including its council and committees, is broadly reflective of the wider membership of the association. The leadership committee of BERA and its professional staff chose to explore whether or not the equality and diversity profile of the people in its governance structures was reflective of its wider membership. This involved a quantitative analysis of the profile of the people in governance roles within the association and how that profile compared to the wider membership. This resulted in BERA producing its own Race Equality Policy (2021; 2023), in which BERA affirms its commitment to the equitable treatment of all people. The policy acknowledges, seeks to better understand and intends to change the structural and institutional inequities and unjust power imbalances that affect its members and the wider research community.

Paper 3 begins with the hypothesis: Cultural diversity is our greatest strength. When evaluating that idea, how do we apply education diversity within teaching and learning? Do we do it enough or are we give opportunities to Pedagogical practice is inclusive within national Programmes of Study but how do we teach diverse content to increase understandings of ethnic majority and minority issues (Vertovec, 2023)? The need to empower teachers through change and transformative practice is one way to address the complex issues that concern diversity. However, diversity training has to be lifelong and not only teaching the background and present applications of Windrush and Partition (Miah et al, 2020). Providing reflective spaces for education practitioners but informing teachers and lecturers of the possibilities and challenges of multicultural education and anti-racist pedagogy are also ways to do this. (Baptiste and Writer, 2021; Haise, in Haise and Kennedy, 2021). One of the key findings of my empirical research is awareness training within continuing professional development (Race, in Production). We need to move beyond simply promoting diversity and inclusion (Dobbin and Kalev, 2022).

(Dobbin and Kalev, 2022).

In the last decade, unprecedented events have taken place in the larger social, political and economic contexts in Europe, especially with the wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Brexit, and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic. These dramatic changes have challenged language teacher education policies, practices, and discourses preordained by neoliberal ideologies (Conchran-Smith, 2010; Kaur, 2012; Zeichner, 2010). The past 15 years have witnessed an increased attention towards social justice in teacher education, significantly increasing the number of teacher education programs with a social justice orientation, especially in the US (Zeichner, 2006). The countries in Europe (e.g., Finland) have also begun to engage with social justice issues as part of their language education curriculum (Ennser-Kananen, 2021; Saarinen & Ennser-Kananen, 2020). The Council of Europe’s 2018 Companion to CEFR, for instance, was considered a milestone for underlining the role of languages in human rights and social justice (Council of Europe, 2018). As a reflection of these developments, several small-scale conferences have been held across the world, such as University of Jyväskylä’s Language Education for Social Justice in 2021, Finland and Sinop University’s Symposium on Social Justice in ELT that was held in 2019 and 2022, Turkey.

Teacher education for social justice not only develops teachers’ critical consciousness but also engages them in social transformative action (Hastings & Jacob, 2016; Hawkins, 2011; Nieto, 2010). The research on social justice teacher education mostly focused on teacher candidates and outlined the knowledge, skills, abilities as well as the attitudes and dispositions social justice educators need in order to provide equitable, anti-oppressive, and inclusive pedagogies to their learners (Ayers et al., 2009; Cochran Smith, 2004; Hawkins, 2011; McLaren & Fischman, 1998).

Within the fields of applied linguistics and language education, social justice language teacher education has also emerged as a field that enables language teachers to build bridges between course content, their own lived experiences, and the needs of their local communities (Avineri et al., 2019; Ortactepe Hart & Martel, 2020). While emphasis has been given to the learning and unlearning processes of language teachers (i.e., unlearning unearned privileges, stereotypes and biases) and developing them as advocates and allies (Braden, Lund, Hatch, 2020; Linville & Whiting, 2019), exactly how social justice language teacher education leads to social change, and the role language teachers play as teachers/activists remain unexplored. Therefore, this study examines the extent to which social responsibility projects language teachers carry out in their schools and local communities help them develop their critical consciousness and (re)construct their identities as teachers/activists. Our overarching research question was:

• In what ways do social responsibility projects help language teachers (re)construct their identities as teachers/activists?

This study draws on a large-scale project, funded by the US Embassy Ankara in Turkey. This project aimed to illustrate how policies and practices related to pre-service English language teacher training can be deconstructed and then reconstructed through the framework of social justice. First, we, as the project coordinators and researchers, visited different universities in Turkey, introduced our project to fourth-year pre-service English language teachers, and recruited our participants. Second, the participants received training designed as four different webinars, each with focus on different social justice issues including environmental justice and sustainability, gender equality, LGBTQ+ inclusive pedagogies, and immigration and peacebuilding. After each webinar, they carried out critical blog activities and designed lesson plans. Following the webinars, each pre-service teacher, as an agent of social and educational change, carried out a social responsibility project (SRP) in their local context. Participants of the present study are the five pre-service English language teachers who participated in the larger project mentioned above.

In this paper, we foreground the concept of experiential education (Kolb, 1984) to discuss the potential of museums in supporting the development of intercultural learning and critical consciousness for Norwegian student teachers. Drawing on the Scandinavian Romani exhibition as a case study (Glomdalsmuseet, 2022), we reflect on how an experiential engagement with this exhibition may create a learning space that awakens student teachers’ critical consciousness and provides opportunities for self-reflection in relation to a historically minoritized group in Norway. This paper is guided by the following question: How may learning about Norway’s Roma people in a museum contribute to the development of student teachers’ critical thinking and intercultural knowledge from an experiential learning perspective?

A growing body of research has explored the possibilities for emphatic development, personal and social transformation in museums from a pedagogical perspective (Andre et al., 2017; Fleming, 2013; Fouseki, 2010; Kalsås, 2015). In a review of research on museums as avenues for learning for children, Andre et al. (2017) found that theories of constructivism, particularly sociocultural perspectives on learning, have been highly influential when museums develop programs, exhibitions, and learning models for children. As noted by Andre et al. (2017), views from both within and outside the field of museology have espoused a conceptual change on the function of museums, from “places of education to places for learning” (p. 48). From viewing museums as sites for the consumption of content information and pre-produced knowledge, often immersed in entertainment, a shift toward experiential opportunities has emerged so as to facilitate an interactive and potentially transformative engagement with the exhibitions.

Although strategies and activities employed in museums tend to be well-grounded in sociocultural and interpretative approaches, we argue that an experiential-critical theoretical lens remains necessary as we reflect upon student teachers’ intercultural learning in museums. As a critical contribution, experiential education warns against “depositing” knowledge in the students. As Freire (2018) argued, teaching within the banking system of education would mean creating a false sense of discovery in the learners by leading them to information that would have been pre-selected by us, educators, based on our own experiences with and objectives for the subject matter. In the banking system of education, the senses and emotions learners experience are numbed and delegitimized because their roles are dehumanized to that of passive recipients of (irrelevant) information.

Anchoring our discussion in Freire’s (1970; 2018) concept of problem-posing education, the paper debates how visiting the Romani exhibition can enhance student teachers’ development of intercultural knowledge of the Roma peoples of Norway in a manner that can challenge their preconceptions of that same group and help them identify where such preconceptions originate from, which includes stereotypes and narratives that have unfavorably informed the social construction of this group in Norway. Equally, or perhaps more important, is the question of how this activity may inspire student teachers to act upon their own knowledge to not only identify, but also confront mechanisms that maintain the social and cultural inferiorization of minoritized groups within schools.

Until recent times, Ireland was often regarded as a homogenous country comprised of a monocultural population with monocultural experiences (Fanning, 2007; Devine, 2011). However, this is a misrepresentation of the Irish cultural narrative, within which immigration, emigration and diversity have always co-existed. Multi-ethnicity in Ireland is not a new occurrence; Irish Travellers, Black-Irish people, Jewish people and other immigrants have always been part of Irish society (Lentin & McVeigh, 2002). However, it is fair to say that Ireland’s ‘migration turning point’ (Ruhs, 2005) in 1996, which transformed Ireland from a country of emigration to one of in-migration for the first time, has led to an increase in diversity among school populations, with over 11 per cent of children currently enrolled in Irish primary schools coming from a migrant background (DES, 2018).

However, the diversity which now exists in the typical Irish primary school classroom is not mirrored in the student demographics of initial teacher education, with evidence showing that student teachers remain overwhelmingly White, female, settled, middle-class and Catholic (Keane & Heinz, 2016) and their exposure to diversity is very limited (Leavy, 2005). 95.8–96.2% of undergraduate primary entrants claim only Irish nationality and further 2.8–3.5% of undergraduate primary student teachers claimed Irish nationality plus a secondary non-Irish nationality (Keane & Heinz, 2016, p. 9). This is very revealing, showing an overwhelming majority (approximately 99% at upper level of the data) identifying as ‘White Irish’ based on the census categorisations. Moreover, students from under-represented and racialised groups face a myriad of cultural complexities, institutional limitations, and economic constraints to becoming a primary teacher in Ireland. These barriers span the continuum of access and admissions, post-entry to ITE and transition to teaching.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) draws upon a series of innovative methodological tools to address racism, discrimination, and relentless inequalities in society. Counter-storytelling, also known ‘oppositional storytelling’ (Delgado, 1995, p. xv) is one such device in the ‘conceptual toolbox’ of CRT (Gillborn, 2007). Counter-stories centre the significance of experiential knowledge and are positioned in direct opposition to stereotypical scripts or ‘stock stories’, (Delgado, 1989). This presentation will use the tool of counter-storytelling (Delgado, 1989; 1995), within a critical race theory framework, to reveal findings from a PhotoVoice research project with minoritized ethnic young people interested in pursuing a career in primary teaching in Ireland. Through symbolic image-narratives, counter stories will be shared relating to identity and belonging, the centrality of racism in the educational experiences of the young people, and their narrative responses to the persistent injustices and barriers they have faced in pursuit of their teaching dream.

In line with international trends, the overwhelming majority of primary teachers in Ireland are white and from the dominant ethnic group (Bryan, 2010; Devine, 2011; Keane & Heinz, 2015). In contrast, Irish primary schools and classrooms are becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse (Ní Dhuinn & Keane, 2021). Research has detailed that racisms are prevalent in Irish schools and that racisms are part of children’s realities (Devine, 2013; McGuirk, 2023). Teachers have a role to play in responding to racism, in educating children about racisms and anti-racism, and in enabling children to challenge and resist racisms in society. White teachers, through their life experiences, gain a particular understanding of ‘race’ and difference and this can impact how they engage with anti-racism education (Picower, 2009; McGuirk, 2023). White teachers have the potential to replicate and sustain dominant patterns of white supremacy (Yoon, 2012; Forrest, Lean & Dunn, 2015; Vass, 2018). Zembylas (2018) argues that due to an internalisation of whiteness ideology, white teachers find it emotionally difficult to engage in anti-racism education. This can manifest as white discomfort and can have an impact on how teachers who are racialized as white conceptualise and practice anti-racism education. On the other hand, white teachers also have the potential to disrupt the racialized status quo that reinforces dominant ideologies (McGuirk, 2023). Acknowledging and moving beyond white discomfort can create opportunities for critical reflection and transformative anti-racism education practices.

This presentation stems from a recently-completed doctoral research study on anti-racism education that employed critical multiculturalism, critical race theory and critical whiteness studies within its conceptual framework.

The increasing visibility of different forms of diversity has given voice to racism as a global phenomenon affecting many of the world’s peoples across all continents including Europe and the country now known as Australia, with experiences such as prejudice and discrimination well-documented (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), 2018; World Health Organisation (WHO), 2023). Immigrants to Australia and Europe experience racisms through the systems of the dominant, neo-liberal, white, patriarchal, capitalist culture. These systems of Whiteness are invisible and ubiquitous, normative and performative (Ball et al., 2022; Moreton-Robinson, 2015) and result in similar experiences of racisms for many individuals identified as not belonging to the white social group. Although the targeted groups may differ, “race…as a technology of power” (Lentin, 2020, p. 82) and the “hierarchy of different races with White people (men) at the top” (Ball et al., 2022, p. 3) sanctions racisms in both the European Union and Australia.

The 2021 report from the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) provides an example of the similarity between experiences of racisms on the European and Australian continents. The experiences of racism in interactions with policing in Europe harms many non-white people, including Roma and people of African descent (Ball et al., 2022), with “discriminatory profiling by the police…a common reality” (FRA, 2018, p. 1). Racial profiling and targeted incarceration (in both adult and juvenile systems) are common experiences for Aboriginal Australian Peoples also. Changes to policy and systems at government levels have failed to demolish institutional/systemic racisms, address white privilege, or deliver substantive improvement to disparities in the wellbeing, life expectancy, and social opportunities for non-white peoples globally (WHO, 2023).

Experiences of racisms in pedagogies, curricula and policy continue to impact educational outcomes for many non-white students around the world, including Aboriginal Australian students, Roma students and students of African descent (Ball et al., 2022; Moodie et al., 2019). The research presented here aims to contribute to understanding racisms as perpetuated through the unacknowledged Whiteness of Australian education. This institutionalised racism (Vass, 2016) re/creates white supremacy through the control of knowledge and the passing on of values, based on what Mills (2007) and others refer to as white ignorance. The right to a culturally relevant education is rarely fulfilled, and the consequent “critical education gap” between Aboriginal Peoples and other Australians is mirrored globally.

This study explored attitudes and actions of white Australian in-service teachers regarding racisms in education. Using the conceptual lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Crenshaw et al., 1995), the critical gaze was shifted from non-white social groups toward the dominant, white social group (racialising whiteness). This move was taken upon Watson’s (2007, p. 31) urging to stop “blaming the ‘other’” and “instead… [to interrogate] the role of the white privileged self” to better understand racisms, power and racialised practice, and the structural, systemic racisms of institutions and knowledge production.

The objective of this research was to explore the current attitudes and actions of teachers regarding experiences of racism in education. Building on previous international research, this study questioned how teachers feel about the knowledge and experiences of students, how effective they judge their own learning, and how comfortable they are with their pedagogical approaches.

This study aims at understanding what does diversity in higher education mean and why it is needed. It will further investigate if there are relations between diversity, interculturality and social justice in relation to higher education. Do we need to look at diversity without relating to this other concepts?

Some people were forced to immigrate to Europe due to armed conflicts, poverty and different forms of human rights abuses experienced in their countries of origin. These new groups as well as the existence of national minorities contributed to a large population with different backgrounds within the same nations. Due to their social and educational backgrounds (Lardy, Bressoux & Clercq, 2021) students from these minorities are not securing results that allows them to join higher education.

Encouraging the engagement of immigrant students in school work and to increase their results can positively influence their ambitions and motivations for further studies which can result in diversity in higher education (Umans, Collin & Tagesson, 2008). The need for diversity of students in higher education was expressed in Bologna process as “to reflect the diversity of population” and “increasing participation of underrepresented groups” (Tolstrup Holmegaard, 2017).

Students and staff with diverse backgrounds can share with their peers´ knowledge and experiences of cultural, religious and other life experiences which could contribute to diversity and inclusion in a positive way (Ogunyemi, Clare, Astudillo, Marseill, Manu & Kim, 2020). This can even contribute to intercultural communication and enrich diversity in higher education (Otten, 2009; Schweisfurth & Gu, 2009; Borghetti, Beaven & Pugliese, 2015). In this process, “international mobility and domestic multiculturalism” (Otten, 2009) can help not only interaction but also co-construction of interculturality (Borghetti, Beaven & Pugliese, 2015). Interculturality that aims at equality, common goals, cooperation and support from responsible authorities (Schweisfurth & Gu, 2009).

This diversity can encourage intercultural communication among persons in higher education with different gender, race, ethnicity, functional variation, sexual orientation, culture, religious faiths etc. Beyond the observable diversities, higher education also needs to give room for and embrace diversity of perspectives (Gonzales & LaPointe Terosky, 2020) . Diversity of perspectives could widen students view so that they need not take for granted research results and academic reasonings as absolute truths. Instead help them to understand that knowledge develops and changes through time with new research and findings.

Diversity and interculturality are relevant but higher education should even aim beyond. Marginalized groups have limited access to resources and opportunities within higher education and in the society (Behtou, & Høyer Leivestad, 2019). There are hindrances for them to get acceptable education to fulfil the criteria to join higher education. If higher education should worth its salt, it needs to involve in societal debates and actions to improve the life situation for younger people from marginalized groups (Chile & Black, 2015). It needs to work for social justice, that considers as its goals distribution of resources, acknowledgment of differences and allows participation for marginalized groups to be heard (Avis, 2019).

Meaningful diversity leads to intercultural exchange and working for social justice for marginalized groups within higher education. Working for social justice in the long run will help equity and equality in accessing all forms of resources that give opportunity for marginalized groups in the society to get their fair opportunity to join higher education (Bagga-Gupta, Messina Dahlberg & Vigmo, 2020; Danvers & Hinton-Smith, 2022). It is important to allow students to be a part of the dialogue by taking their account of what it means to be marginalized and how inclusion and social justice could be realized for the diverse groups (Messiou, 2019).

The USLC at the University of Texas-San Antonio is a unique principal preparation program that focuses on preparing aspiring school principals to become transformational leaders who can work in diverse, ambiguous and challenging school contexts (Garza & Merchant, 2009; Merchant & Garza, 2015). Originating in a partnership with San Antonio Independent School District, now in its 11th cohort, the USLC model established new partnerships. This new program, USLC-South Bexar (USLC-SB), is in its fourth cohort, working to prepare school leaders for small districts in urban settings. A vital feature of the USLC is the leadership from its core faculty, former school principals, and district administrators who bring heuristic knowledge in preparing and developing school leaders for social justice. The Urban School Leaders Collaborative (USLC) is an award-winning 36-semester credit hour program that leads to the Master of Education Degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and Texas Principal as Instructional Leader Certification. The transformative program prepares leaders for social justice leadership in diverse communities.

This collaborative and collective partnership was significantly enhanced with the recent award of a multi-million-dollar grant from the Wallace Foundation, the Equity-Centered Principal Initiative. The collaborative has been nurtured, sustained, and studied for the past twenty years with unconditional support from the former and present district superintendents as well as the dean of the college of education and human development (Murakami-Ramalho, Garza, & Merchant, 2009).

A constructivist theoretical approach drives teaching and learning in this program. In a constructivist classroom, students and faculty engage in critical reflection, individually and collectively (Merchant & Garza, 2015). Coupled with constructivist learning theory, the Pedagogy of Collective Critical Consciousness (Garza, 2015) engages masters students deeply in collective learning activities, including shared critical reflection, written autoethnographies, digital life stories, community engagement projects, equity audits, and ultimately, the implementation of praxis (Freire, 2000). As co-constructors of knowledge, students, and faculty are both teachers and learners.

The aim of this paper is to analyse how the sense-making of diversity by Finnish primary school teachers in relation to aims of inclusion and social justice links to pedagogical choices they make. Finland, as part of the Nordic countries, is often referred to as a country of educational equality. The ‘Nordic model’ for education has emphasized equal education for all in order to erase societal inequalities and equalise opportunities also for higher education for all (Frønes et al., 2020). The Finnish national curriculum strongly supports diversity and support of each pupil to attain their full potential (FNBE, 2014). The ‘education for all’ in Finland has among other things contained a local school principle’ since the introduction of the compulsory school in the 1970’s, where every child goes to their neighbourhood school; as well as inclusion of all pupils in the same schools and classrooms (Finnish basic education act, 2010; see also UNESCO, 1994). However, recent results from different angles of social (in)justice in education, challenge the success story of the Nordic and Finnish model (Corral-Granados et al., 2023; Frønes et al., 2020). In many European cities (Musterd et al., 2017), there is an increased socio-economic segregation, which in turn creates segregation between schools (see e.g. Maloutas & Lobato, 2015). School segregation takes place also in Finland (Bernelius & Vilkama, 2019), as well as segregation between classes in the same school, based intersectingly on both socio-economic status and race (Kosunen et al., 2020; Peltola, 2020). The “local school” principle is strongly challenged by school choice policies in urban areas (e.g. Seppänen et al. 2015). Finland has also received criticism for differences in educational outcomes based on gender and immigrant status (OECD, 2019) and on equal learning opportunities for pupils with special education needs (SEN) (Corral-Granados et al., 2023; Lempinen, 2017). In their review article on the research on exclusion of different minoritized groups in education in the Nordic countries, Corral-Granados et al. (2023) argue that there is a need to analyse these areas of exclusion together. They (p. 19) also emphasize both the importance and challenge for the school staff to strive for social justice. In line with this, there is also an ongoing debate on Finnish education and goals of inclusion, where teachers often claim the task of including an increasing diversity of pupils as too demanding with the resources provided.

With this study we wish to contribute to both the Finnish, and international dialogue on inclusion, diversity and social justice, by analysing teachers’ meaning-making on these issues from the perspective of critical multicultural education and social justice education (Ayers et al., 2008; Nieto, 2018). The principles for social justice in education outlined by Ayers et al. (2008, p. xiv) are both equal access and outcomes in education, full participation for all pupils, together with a critical resistance to inequal societal power relations. The aim of critical multicultural and social justice education is to strive towards social justice by critically examining and acting on inequalities (e.g. Nieto, 2018). We approach diversity through intersectionality, taking into account both class, race, ability, language, gender, sexuality, religion, and other social categories that emerge as relevant in the specific context, and their relations to power (Collins, 2019).

Our research questions are:

1. How do teachers talk about diversity in relation to inclusion and social justice?

1. How are the pedagogical choices teachers make related to their understandings of diversity?

Research questions, objectives, and theoretical framework

This paper compares secondary school teachers’ narratives on the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds in Italy and Norway. The research question is:

How do secondary school teachers narrate the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds in Italy and Norway?

Since the 90s, Italy and Norway have considered inclusion a core value of their educational systems. The two countries share, in some respects, a common migration history, starting to turn from emigration countries to immigration countries at the end of the 20^th century. Following the international policy pathways of inclusion (Caputo, 2012; Hilt, 2020) and in response to the increasing migration flows, the contents and principles of the Salamanca Statement (Unesco, 1994) have been gradually translated within the Italian and Norwegian national educational systems (Caputo, 2012; Nilsen, 2010). Despite these similarities, the two countries have developed different policy narratives on the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds. Italy embraced a so-called “intercultural” approach where the policy narrative is based on explicit ideological instances and employs normative-laden language (Caputo 2012; Rompianesi & Hilt, in review). On the other hand, the Norwegian “inclusion” approach seems to turn towards a de-politicization of the terms employed in education policy documents and to develop more “technocratic” narratives (Burner et al., 2018; Rompianesi & Hilt, in review). In this regard, Norway and Italy represent a good example of how common international principles can be differently translated and narrated in their travel from the international sphere to the national dimension, even in countries with a similar migration history (Robertson & Dale, 2017).

In this peculiar scenario, it becomes relevant for international educational research to study from a comparative perspective the narratives on inclusion, not just at the macro (policy) level but also at the meso (school/institution) and micro (teacher/student) levels. Regarding teachers’ practices, Italian and Norwegian teachers seem to have ambiguous representations of inclusion and diversity (Arnesen et al., 2007; Burner et al., 2018; Tarozzi, 2006). Many Italian teachers underline the existence of a “gap” between inclusive/intercultural principles and practices (Tarozzi, 2012) and perceive inclusion as a “ghost model” (Tarozzi, 2012, p. 399) promoted by national policy narratives but hard to put into practice. In this regard, there is a lack of studies that address how secondary school teachers narrate their experiences with inclusive/intercultural education. There is also a lack of studies on how such narratives are structured in countries that share a common set of core educational principles but have developed different public narratives on the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds.

The theoretical framework of the study is rooted in Bruner’s socio-constructivist perspective (Bruner, 1977) and narrative theory (Bruner, 1996). Narratives are understood “as a mode of thinking, as a structure for organizing our knowledge, and as a vehicle in the process of education” (Bruner, 1996, p. 119). Personal and collective narratives take shape in a shared social, cultural, and symbolic space, where knowledge is constructed through interactions with others. They can embed stories – with a beginning and an end – as well as arguments, concepts, and representations of the world. In this regard, Bruner’s so-called narrative principle highlights the narrative nature of human discourse and allows us to investigate narrative thinking as one of the ways we make sense of reality and our own experiences (Bruner, 1991, 2004).

Researching diversity and inequality relations within inequality relations brings with it various difficulties. Our projects are situated in different regions of Europe, thus what combines us and our projects is that we are facing very similar struggles while trying to find ways of navigating the multiple dilemmas when researching in hegemonic orders of knowledge. How can we try to widen or intervene in the boundaries set by eurocentric and powerful orders in academia and research? What forms of knowledge production can contribute to its democratisation or at least open up spaces for its critique? How can we deal with the issue that every speaking in academic settings reproduces colonial orders of knowledge which we aim to overcome? Taking up these questions we will use our projects to think about different ways of dealing and failing with/in these contradictions. Specifically we draw on two traditions: PAR (Participatory Action Research) and (biographical) reconstructive approaches. In both traditions, the claim of a bottom-up and power critical science (Fine & Torre, 2021; Dausien 2015 and 1994) which tries to intervene in hegemonic single stories, can be found. In the reconstructive tradition, however, this claim tends to be associated with the goal to a trained break-up of societal constructions and social conditions, which as a presuppositional working mode then remains reserved for a smaller circle of scholars. Does that leave only the role of informants for the marginalized, for those who do research ‘from below’? PAR on the other hand, relies more on the participation of non-professional researchers in as many phases and areas of research as possible - but with the danger of not going "deeper", of not being able to break one's own entanglements in social conditions due to limited time and financial resources in the fields?

How do our projects position themselves in relation to these questions and contradictions? What can we contribute to this debate with a methodological critique (from within) and possibilities for change?

Diren Yesil’s research on anti-Kurdish racism in Germany, in which she conducts narrative-biographical interviews with Kurds, is concerned with the question of how a decolonial research practice can not only shift the content of hegemonic knowledge orders, but also contribute to a recognition of different ways of articulation.Teresa Dias brings in contributions of participatory action research processes with young people between 12 and 16 years old in Portugal. She works on how young athletes develop projects in/with the community through sport. Based on the training actions, young people realised how they could get to know their community spaces better and identify the problems that exist there assuming a "problem-based solution” approach. Michael Doblmair asks as an activist researcher from the perspectives of the social movement research how to combine research and political activism in the field of educational protests in Austria. Particularly is he interested in the research processes understood as educational processes from teacher-activists. In her presentation, Grete Erckmann focuses first on the difference and relationship between the “co-researcher principle”, other participatory research approaches and reconstructive research methodology. To then discuss possible connections and potentials of these epistemological and methodological approaches based on her PhD research project “Living Youth in a Migration Society” in a German City. Marlene Märker and Jacqueline Hackl will discuss modes of combination of biographical-reconstructive and participatory approaches while reflecting on the restrictive conditions of PhD projects which set boundaries to their research in various ways. Focussing on the dilemmas which arise specifically with these approaches they will speak about their ways of navigating these issues when designing and working on their projects in Austria.

All networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.

This Panel proposes a set of papers which engage the question: what are the challenges that arise when seeking to value diversity in education? In (neo)liberal democracies, inclusion and cultural diversity is often framed in policy in celebratory ways (European Agency, 2022). However, diversity produces challenges. For example in 2010, then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced that multiculturalism had failed (Weaver, 2010) and ensuing years have seen growing prevalence of ethno-nationalist discourses and political representation in Europe and across the world.

This panel takes seriously the desire for diversity in education by examining the discontents that emerge with such desire. Policy language such as 'managing diversity' (Little et al., 2013) implicitly acknowledges that diversity is difficult. While ‘diversity’ may signify a positive aim for liberal society, the actual existence of diversity brings to the surface a cultural politics in which often unacknowledged assumptions about identity, race, and culture are brought into conflict.

Through analyses of diversity dilemmas in schools, the Panel will discuss the 'discontents' of diversity by considering the relationality of pedagogies of discomfort, difficult knowledge, school subject choices, and educative leadership. By examining these issues in relation to settler colonial contexts and international schooling, the Panel aims to unsettle the too-easy celebration of diversity within liberalism, and scrutinise the problems and potential of centring that which is difficult and uncomfortable about education within the context of diversity. All papers within the Panel are guided by a commitment to justice that looks beyond the liberal frame.

The first paper contends with how to address historical injustices in diverse classrooms in British settler colonial contexts. By examining the possibilities of ‘pedagogies of discomfort’ the paper explores the potential for ethical violence raised by approaches that intentionally invoke discomfort (Zembylas, 2015). In response, building on Grande (2018), the paper proposes a range of key tenets for a care-ful and uncoercive reconfiguring of desire, suggesting a path through discomfort to transformative possibility.

The next two papers focus on curriculum in different ways and question the unintended consequences of diversifying curriculum and subject choice. The first of these papers focuses on the concept of ‘difficult knowledge’ (Britzman, 1998) in culturally diverse educational spaces. The paper proposes the concept of ‘difficult funds of knowledge’, as a possibility for engaging with the range of knowledge culturally diverse young people might bring into white dominant classrooms and the dynamics that arise for teachers in relation to this.

The second curriculum paper focuses on diversity in senior secondary education in Australia. Despite decades of reform and reviews that have sought to make senior secondary schooling in Australia more equitable and increase the subject opportunities to a growing and diverse student body, these reforms have consistently failed to destabilise the curriculum hierarchy and its privileging of academic knowledges. The paper demonstrates the distinctive curriculum hierarchy in operation in one Australian state and its durability across time, highlighting continued inequalities in subject access in relation to class, gender and location.

The final paper will examine the problem of international schools leading change in relation to attitudes and practices related to racism and cultural diversity. In response to attempts within the international school sector to lead change in the area of diversity and inclusion, the paper argues for educative leadership (Fay, 1975/2015) as a non-instrumentalist approach to social change. It draws on anarcho-syndicalist structures of organisation to account for diversity within schools and a collective, participatory approach to a more just leadership for change.

Overall, the Panel opens a conversation about educator and researcher responsibility to grapple with diversity’s discontents in our quests for more equitable and just education systems.

In this session scholars explore the theory and practice of global citizenship education, with a special focus on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for sustainability. The objective of the session is to introduce new theoretical developments and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scholarly discourses in global citizenship education. The presentations debate the extent to which global citizenship should be seen as a pedagogical approach for social change, and within this promote a sense of hope, whilst being mindful of the existing global challenges to building a more just, diverse and sustainable world. In this session scholars explore several converging themes within their respective presentations:

1. An exploration of ethical and values-based perspectives that is lacking in the present discourse on education for global citizenship.
2. The idea of global citizenship as an organizing principle for rethinking the curriculum across diverse education settings.
3. An examination of existing and alternative pedagogical models and practices, including from non-western perspectives that can contribute to the intercultural dimension of education for global citizenship.

Structure of the session: Three presentations will be followed by a discussion led by an expert in the field (listed as fourth presenter).

Paper 1

Title: Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship: An Intercultural Approach

The contributions of this paper are centred around these key questions: how can education be reframed in light of the environmental crisis? How do we address teaching about sustainability and global citizenship based on alternative paradigms? This paper reflects on the double planetary crises of climate impacts and COVID-19 through a study of selected less widely known perspectives and eco-visions. Value-creating global citizenship education is developed as a pedagogical approach from a study of selected indigenous perspectives aimed to enhance the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, and beyond. The key focus of this approach is to build resilience and hope through engaged relationships between learners and their natural, social, and educational environments.

Paper 2

Title: Pedagogy of Hope for Global Social Justice

COVID-19 and the climate change crisis have re-enforced the need for education around the world to incorporate diverse perspectives that suggest social change is possible, but this means bringing in themes of global citizenship and a sense of hope. This paper will build on the author’s recently published book on education for social change and how crisis such as the global pandemic and debates around sustainability have suggested that social justice needs to have a much more central place within all educational provision. The paper will make reference to the continued importance of Paulo Freire in addressing these questions. The paper will give examples from research and practice as to how educators are starting to address these challenges.

Paper 3

Title: Creating Value at University for Social Transformation Based on Hope and Respect for Diversity

In this paper we will use as an example our work carried out at the University of Alcalá in the formation of future Early Childhood and Primary Education teachers and their ability to adapt to the diversity in their classrooms. It is essential that teachers reflect on how to create value (Makiguchi, 1989) in a classroom based on their own experience, giving meaning to their learning in an inclusive context. In our classes we use the transformative (Kegan, 2000; Hoggan, 2016) and dialogic (Wegerif et al, 2023) learning approaches to build reflective learning based on experience and reflection on experience. Through taking responsibility for their own learning, teachers are able to see themselves as potential agents for transforming reality to construct a fairer world (Hall, et al., 2021).

Diversity characterises the current social situation and is reflected at all levels of society and its institutions and organisations, including schools. Although migration-related diversity is becoming increasingly common in schools, it is frequently looked at from a deficit perspective (see Hummrich & Terstegen, 2020; Oberlechner-Duval, 2021). The thought patterns and ideas underlying such a perspective are usually implicit and rooted in social hierarchies that are reproduced in schools. This symposium examines socially learned biases as a challenge for teacher professionalisation and school development. The four contributions deal with diversity-sensitive professionalisation through mobility (internships abroad or school service abroad) or through programmes employing an anti-bias approach in university education or further training. All contributions in this symposium adopt discrimination-critical perspectives on teaching and learning, focusing on different areas: working with newly arrived and refugee students (Rosen & tom Dieck), language as a “mark of difference” (Dirim & Guldenschuh), culturalization and devaluation processes (Mantel), stereotypes, institutional discrimination and their reflection (Dedecek Gertz et al.).

International mobility programmes are increasingly part of teacher education and professionalisation. Universities and colleges of education offer accompanying mobility programmes for future teachers in which students can gain experience in schools. But also, professional mobility of in-service teachers, such as stays in schools abroad, is supported by educational administrations. In both cases, teacher training students and in-service teachers who spend time in schools abroad are expected to acquire competencies for dealing with intercultural and multicultural education in diverse contexts ‘at home’, that is, in societies characterised by migration. However, these expectations are often not met and experiences abroad can even be counterproductive, leading to the consolidation of existing stereotypes (see Dockrill et al., 2016; Mantel in this symposium). This finding raises questions about the design of diversity-sensitive and discrimination-critical preparation and follow-up of such experiences abroad as a part of teacher training and in-service training/further education. In the symposium, we discuss questions along the lines of: How can we support teacher-training students and in-service teachers to critically reflect on their experiences during internships or work abroad? How can this reflection contribute to the development of competencies for teaching and learning in (inter)national diversity contexts?

In our symposium, we not only consider international mobility as part of diversity-sensitive education and training; we also ask more generally how teacher education and training can initiate a critical reflection of socially learnt biases in societies characterised by migration. Research shows that orientations towards dominant linguistic-cultural norms lead to discrimination in schools (see Dirim, 2010; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2015). Promoting positive attitudes towards migration in education, especially in times of stress, remains a challenge (Borgonovi & Pokropek 2018). In the symposium, we will discuss applications of the anti-bias approach in teacher training and in-service training/further education. That approach, we argue, is appropriate for encouraging students to reflect upon their own experiences – including those related to school internships at home or abroad – and to understand structures and processes of discrimination. When working with in-service teachers, the anti-bias approach can be an asset in focusing on institutional discrimination and sharpening the development of a discrimination-critical school structure and environment.

All contributions of this symposium have implications for the question of how teacher training and mobility programmes for teacher education can be designed to develop a professional approach to diversity and discrimination critique in schools.

Two transfer projects apply the anti-bias approach and explore their outcomes/their effectiveness: a university teacher training programme (1) and a training programme for in-service teachers (2) in order to enable the participants to reflect on and (re)design classroom and organizational practices with goals of social justice and discrimination critique in mind. The DiCoT project (Diversity Contexts in Teacher Education) at the University of Hamburg supports critical thinking about discrimination among prospective teachers through a self-reflexive approach (Iwers & Yilmaz, 2021, p. 221). The goal of employing the anti-bias approach is not only to impart knowledge but also to strengthen future teachers in their professional roles. They should be enabled to create educational spaces in which diversity and anti-discriminatory action are explored at the same time (Gomolla 2022, p. 11). In a preparatory seminar, future teachers are prepared for an internship in Germany or abroad where they can experience different diversity contexts. The accompanying qualitative research investigates the extent to which critical reflection processes are initiated. In the symposium, we will present excerpts from observation protocols (seminars) and interviews with students. We will analyse stereotypes about cultural behaviour and discuss how students can be encouraged to question deeply rooted assumptions about culture and nation. The Advisory Centre for Intercultural Education at the Hamburg State Institute for Teacher Training and School Development offers training for in-service teachers, also based on the anti-bias approach (Panesar, 2022). In a two-year training, participants learn about basic fields of school development (curricula and classroom practice, organizational development and staff structure) and anti-bias pedagogy in externally offered modules. The development and implementation of initial practical projects in the schools are advised and accompanied by the framework of the training programme. An in-depth analysis of qualitative data (interviews, document analysis, semi-structured questionnaire) from a perennial formative evaluation study of the in-service training programme (Gomolla, 2019) provides insights into the learning and professionalisation processes of the participants as well as into the dynamics of implementing discrimination-critical school development in some of the participating organisations.

Iwers, T., Yilmaz, S. M. (2021). Entwicklung von Reflexionsmodalitäten inklusiven Unterrichts durch die Fallreflexion in sieben Schritten. In T. Iwers, U. Graf (Eds.), Vielfalt thematisieren: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede gestalten. Bad Heilbrunn, 220-231. Gomolla, M. (2022). Vorwort zum Buch ‚Gerechte Schule. Vorurteilsbewusste Schulentwicklung mit dem Anti-Bias-Ansatz‘ von Rita Panesar. Göttingen, 8-16. Gomolla, M. (2019). Evaluationsstudie „Qualitätsentwicklung von Schule in der Migrationsgesellschaft: Fortbildung zur interkulturellen Koordination“. Zeitschrift für Diversitätsforschung und -management (ZDfm), 4(1-2), 117-123. Panesar, R. (2022). Gerechte Schule. Vorurteilsbewusste Schulentwicklung mit dem Anti-Bias-Ansatz. Göttingen.

German education policy attaches great importance to returnees from German schools abroad: Through their professional mobility, they are expected to acquire relevant competencies for intercultural and multilingual education as well as language-aware teaching and to put these skills into practice back in Germany (KMK 2017: 6). The starting point of this paper is to examine whether this educational policy assumption is viable and supported by academic findings. An international literature review focusing on English- and German-language studies points to the benefits of teachers' professional stays abroad, such as broadening their worldview, developing a range of professional skills, learning new teaching methods, approaches, tools and materials, and so on (Bense 2016: 45). However, when these teachers return home, they are unable to use these skills and knowledge because they are not recognised in terms of salary and career opportunities (ibid). In particular, in our own case study of a returnee from a German school in Turkey (Fißmer & Rosen forthcoming; Fißmer, Rosen & tom Dieck under review), it became clear that the teachers increased competence in language-sensitive teaching and multilingual education was not only not recognised, but also devalued in the face of the “monolingual habitus” (Gogolin 2008) of the German school. Following this, we present another case study of a teacher who worked at a German school in the USA and returned during the “long summer of migration” (Römhild et al. 2018) in 2015. To combine ethnographic and biographical research perspectives, we present the analysis of a biographical narrative interview with her from 2020, in which she reflects on her experiences abroad. Secondly, we draw on participant observations of her teaching of a language support measure for newly arrived and refugee students immediately after her return (see Rosen & tom Dieck 2022 and tom Dieck & Rosen 2023 for additional ethnographic analysis in this educational setting). A key exploratory finding is that a devaluation of the teacher's professional competence is also reconstructed in this case study, as the teacher had to wait another six years for a permanent position after her return. This seems all the more serious as she practices a migration-sensitive teaching style that avoids othering and instead focuses on shared experiences of everyday life abroad. In the concluding discussion, reflections on professionalisation are offered on the one hand, and a critical perspective on the partly missionary character of the German school abroad is raised on the other.

Bense, K. (2016). International teacher mobility and migration. Educational Research Review, 17, 37-49. Fißmer, J., Rosen, L. & tom Dieck, F. (under review). Denied recognition of teachers’ mobility experiences: Perspectives of Teachers Returning to Germany from German Schools Abroad. Fißmer, J. & Rosen, L. (forthcoming). Zum Zusammenhang von Auslandsschulerfahrun-gen und Professionalisierung für die Schule der Migrationsgesellschaft in transnationa-len Berufsbiographien von Lehrkräften. In: Rakhkochkine, A. & Flötotto, M. (Hg.): Inter-nationalisierung der Lehrerbildung und internationale Lehrermigration. FAU University Press. Gogolin, I. (2008). Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Waxmann. KMK (2017). Einsatz deutscher Lehrkräfte im Auslandsschulwesen als ein Instrument der Personal- und Schulentwicklung der Länder. https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2017/2017-10-12-EinsatzLK-ASW.pdf. Römhild, R. et al. (2018). Witnessing the Transition: Moments in the Long Summer of Migration. BIM. Rosen, L. & tom Dieck, F. (2022). "Can I tell my class teacher?" – Newly Arrived Youth Between Language Support Measures and Regular Classes in the Contemporary German School System. Tertium Comparationis, 28(2), 213-233. tom Dieck, F. & Rosen, L. (2022): Before, in or after transition? On becoming a ‘main-stream student’ in Germany and Italy in the context of new migration. In: Seyda Subasi Singh et al. (Eds.): Perspectives on Transitions in Refugee Education. Barbara Budrich, 161-174.

Language is not only a means of communication but also a mark of difference that can be used to establish a gap between two groups "We" and the "Others". Austria and Germany are multilingual countries with allochthonous and autochthonous languages, which at first glance could be seen as a welcome sign of diversity. However, it makes a difference which languages someone can call one’s own. This difference concerns various domains in life – with different consequences for the speakers. On a symbolic level, languages and language variants are valued differently and so are their speakers (Settinieri 2011; Kalpaka & Räthzel 2000), as Bourdieu already made clear with his study on the social difference between someone speaking patois and someone speaking ‘the’ standardized variant of French in France (Bourdieu 1982). Dialects and standard languages are presumably valued differently everywhere (Guldenschuh 2018). But what happens when a migration-society perspective is taken into consideration? This perspective reveals that "accents" and languages are valued differently alongside the differentiation "native speaker". Being – or at least sounding like – a so-called native speaker evokes the mental image of an autochthonous person, who is more often than not perceived as competent and generally capable. Not sounding ‘native’, not speaking fluently and/or with an accent, on the other hand, can be related to being generally less capable (Dirim 2010) and as not belonging to the linguistic majority – the “We”. Not belonging, or being perceived as not belonging to the hegemonic and majority group means potentially facing multiple challenges. From less severe consequences like being seen as an expert in the so-called mother tongue or heritage language (at this point already being labelled as part of the group of the “Others”) to real challenges like facing difficulties and/or unfairness in school or at university (Dirim 2013; Gomolla & Radtke 2009; Döll & Knappik 2015; Knappik & Dirim 2013, Pokitsch 2022), or not being considered to rent an apartment or not getting a job. This fact was reconstructed with studies in various countries, including Turkey and Austria. The problem of devaluing languages and language variants will be illustrated with examples in the lecture and then theorised. It will be shown that colonial (Cyffer 2011) and nation-state (Gogolin 2008) traditions of thought and native speakerism (Holliday 2006) play a major role in the emergence of the described problems and complement Bourdieu’s perspective of power.

Bourdieu, P. (1982): Ce que parler veut dire. Paris: Fayard. Bourdieu, P.(1990): Was heißt sprechen? Wien: Braumüller. Cyffer, N. (2011): Gibt es primitive Sprachen oder ist deutsch auch primitiv? Stolz et al. (eds.): Kolonialzeitliche Sprachforschung. Berlin: Akademie. Dirim, İ. (2010): „Wenn man mit Akzent spricht, denken die Leute, dass man auch so denkt oder so. In: Mecheril et al. (Eds.): Spannungsverhältnisse. Münster: Waxmann. Dirim, İ. (2013): Rassialisierende Effekte? In: Mecheril, et al. (Eds.): Migrationsforschung als Kritik? Wiesbaden: Springer Döll, M. & Knappik, M.(2015): Institutional mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in Austrian pre-service teacher education, Tertium Comparationis, 21(2). Gogolin, I. (2008): Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann. Gomolla, M. & Radtke, F. (2009): Institutionelle Diskriminierung. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Guldenschuh, S. (2018): Akzentismus. In: Dirim et al. (Eds.): Sprache(n) und Diskriminierung in (Hoch-)Schule und Gesellschaft. Holliday, A. (2006): Native-speakerism, ELT 60(4). Kalpaka, A. & Räthzel, N.(2000): Die Schwierigkeit, nicht rassistisch zu sein, In: Räthzel, N. (Ed.): Theorien über Rassismus. Hamburg: Argument. Knappik, M. & Dirim, İ. (2013): „Native Speakerism“ in der Lehrerbildung, Journal für LehrerInnenbildung 3/2013 Pokitsch, D. (2022): Wer spricht?. Wiesbaden: Springer. Settinieri, J. (2011): Soziale Akzeptanz unterschiedlicher Normabweichungen in der L2-Aussprache Deutsch, Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht 16(2)

Internationalisation has become an important part of the strategic development of Universities of Teacher Education in Switzerland, and mobility programmes belong to the most prevalent activities in this regard. Often, it is claimed that mobility programmes contributed to the future teachers’ «global competencies». Often, the learning is assumed to take place almost automatically while studies show that this learning cannot be taken for granted. Sometimes, these learning expectations are not met (Leutwyler, 2014), in fact, sometimes, the international experience is even counterproductive leading to increased culturalising or stereotyping of the constructed ‘others’ (Dockrill et al., 2016). This paper, therefore, aims at tackling the question of how learning from mobility experiences is shaped and in what ways it is supported, enabled or obstructed. For this purpose, insights from two different research projects are consulted and discussed: The first project addresses learning from international internships (Mantel et al., 2022). We pursued a qualitative-hermeneutic approach according to the Documentary Method (Bohnsack, 2010) and collected data from group discussions with student teachers returning from an international internship. The analysis shows that there are two main aspects that can explain to what extent positive learning outcomes can be achieved or not. One of them refers to the way of dealing with perceived contrasts from the familiar and the other to the way of dealing with particularly challenging situations. The results are discussed with reference to the concept of reflective thinking (Dewey, 1910) as well as to the concept of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). The second project deals with the question of what learning abroad experiences mean from a biographical perspective as well as related to the pedagogical orientations, particularly in terms of orientations in dealing with questions of belonging and equity in schools of a migration society. Again, the research was pursued according to the Documentary Method (Bohnsack, 2010), this time with data collection through biographical-narrative interviews (Schütze, 1983). These analyses reveal that the question of whether learning from international experience has an effect on the way of teaching can best be explained if referring to the teachers’ own feeling of recognition (Honneth, 1995; Butler, 1997). The insights from both studies have relevant implications for the questions of how mobility programmes can be designed. At the University of Teacher Education Zug, a new module has been created on the basis of the mentioned insights. The experiences will be shared and discussed.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy. The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. Bohnsack, R. (2010). Documentary Method and Group Discussions. In R. Bohnsack, N. Pfaff, & W. Weller (Eds.), Qualitative Analysis and Documentary Method in International Education Research (pp. 99-124). Opladen & Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power : theories in subjection. Stanford University Press. Dewey, J. (1910). How We Think. New York: Dover Publications. Dockrill, H., Rahatzad, J., & Phillion, J. (2016). The Benefits and Challenges of Study Abroad in Teacher Education in a Neoliberal Context. In J. A. Rhodes & T. M. Milby (Eds.), Advancing Teacher Education and Curriculum Development through Study Abroad Programs (pp. 290-305). Hershey: Information Science Reference. Honneth, A. (1995). The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Leutwyler, B. (2014). Between Myths and Facts: The Contribution of Exchange Experiences to the Professional Development of Teachers. Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 3(2), 106-117. Mantel, C., Kamm, E., & Bieri Buschor, C. (2022). International teaching internships for future teachers: potential and challenges for learning. Educational Research for Policy and Practice. Schütze, F. (1983). Biographieforschung und narratives Interview. Neue Praxis, 13(3), 283-293.

Social inclusion and inclusive education are key priorities in the Europe 2020 strategy and among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the formulation of such goals, there is extensive evidence that various types of barriers are preventing young Europeans from being successfully integrating into society. Those successful at school come primarily from high socioeconomic backgrounds (Broer,Bai & Fonseca, 2019; Chung, 2015). This factor influences their success at school in terms of engagement, grades and their performance in upper secondary school (Alexander, Entwisle & Horsey 1997; Benner, Boyle & Sadler, 2016). From this perspective we argue that the educational system reproduces inequalities, and that many of those struggling have experienced a lack of social inclusion. Social inclusion through education is therefore vital to individual and society as a whole.

This symposium focuses on the project Erasmus+ KAIII “Co-created Education through Social Inclusion” (COSI. Ed). COSI.ed is an upscale of the proven good practice from the Erasmus+ project; Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE). The COSI.ed project intends to develop a comprehensive model for social inclusion of pupils in the risk zone for social exclusion and dropout, as well as a political strategy that can be used throughout Europe. Central in the project are the four cornerstones: 1) context (background, schooling and cultural/national, 2) Co-creating (egalitarian perspective to learning, acknowledging competence in the expert as well as the learner), 3) indirect approach (how to communicate with children vulnerable positions to give them voice) (Moshuus & Eide; 2016) and 4) Equality Literacy (what support or hinder learning, for the expert to understand and to empower the learner to)(Stuart.et.al 2019)

The COSI.ed project is conducted in five different countries and educational contexts representing Southern (Portugal and Spain), Eastern (Poland) and Northern Europe (Norway and Denmark). The objective of the project is to prevent and reduce Early School Leaving from Education and training (ELET)and contribute to change of policy. The ambition is to portray an inclusive educational practice for theorists, researchers, educational authorities, and stakeholders to provide theoretical perspectives to practitioners to strengthen their educational work , provide more equal educational opportunities and preventing school dropouts. Following this project we have the Collaborate Competence Groups (CCG) where the pupils, students, politician, professor and teacher meet to analyses, advice and support the project nationally and internationally.

Co- creation in public sector refers to joint working between people or groups who have traditionally been separated into categories of user and producer (Durose, 2017). When young people and other stakeholders’ experiences and tacit knowledge is included in development and implementation of new practices they are experienced as more useful than practices developed and imposed in a ‘top down’ approach(Shamrowa&Cumings,2017).

COSI.ed builds on the understanding that educational staff, role models and the pupils co-create as part of a community of practice. Role models collaborate and share knowledge and experience with students to further develop our approach. By using the embedded methodology pupils learn about themselves, how to excel and the educational staff develop skills and understanding to socially include the pupils.

The collection of studies forms a novel opportunity to discuss strengths and weaknesses of upscaling a co-created model for achieving social inclusion in European countries with diverse contextual characteristics. The symposium contributes to further knowledge about models for social inclusion by focusing on social disadvantage pupils as well as the various teachers’ good practices. In two subsequent symposia we will present the COSI.ed project and the overall design in the first paper. Through the next five papers we will present challenges related to implementation of COSI.ed in the participating countries.

11 partners from five countries are working to develop a European policy that will show a way to include young people in vulnerable positions so that they can find their place in society through school or work. To manage this COSI.ed project will upscale the MaCE-model (developed within the previous project) of socially including young people to excel at school and work. Through the partnership in COSI.ed we will work on upscaling the model, within various national contexts, from local to regional, national and European policy level. The project builds on the MaCE-model, with the four cornerstones of Context, Co-creation, Indirect Approach and Equality Literacy, which is the base of our work with the young people at risk of social exclusion (Bunting & Moshuus 2017; Gravesen, Stuart, Bunting, Mikkelsen, Frostholm & Mikkelsen 2021, Stuart et. Al. 2019; Moshuus&Eide 2014). At this stage of the work, we have tried out the model in the different contexts; rural, urban, in the south, the east and the north of Europe, in countries with a large part of the population with low socio-economic outcome and in a country with a high completion rate. In each context, the chosen group of beneficiaries are young people at risk of dropping out of education or training, who work within the project with trained and selected role models. We have as well co-created with the local partner’s role models, the students, the professionals and the university professors within Collaborate Competence Groups (CCG), who have followed the project locally and internationally as International CCG. Halfway through the project we are tracking down the evidence of the project's efficiency. We are also developing further inclusive and egalitarian methodology to be applicable in the different contexts through the development of effective tools, guidelines and scientific evidence. This paper will give an overview of the COSI.ed project, present the experiences across the national partners, and in that way also create a backdrop for the other presentations in the symposium.

Bunting M., & Moshuus, G.H., (2017) - Young peoples’ own stories of dropping out in Norway: An indirect qualitative approach, Acta Didactica, Vol.11, Nr. 2, Art. 5. Gravesen, D. T., Stuart, K., Bunting, M., Mikkelsen, S., & Hornbæk Frostholm, P. (2021). Combating Marginalisation by Co-Creating Education. Emerald; Moshuus, G. H., & Eide, K. (2016). The Indirect Approach: How to Discover Context When Studying Marginal Youth. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406916656193 Stuart, K., Bunting, M., Boyd, P., Cammack, P., Hornbæk Frostholm, P., Thore Graveson, D., Moshuus, G. Walker, S. (2021). Developing an Equalities Literacy for Practitioners Working with Children, Young People and Families through Action Research. Educational Action Research, 28(3), 362-382

The European strategic framework for education and training 2030 aims to reduce Early Leaving from Education and Training (ELET) to 9% (Council of the European Union, 2021). Spain is one of the countries in the European Union with one of the highest ELET standing at 13.3% in 2021, compared to the EU average of 9.7% (Eurostat, 2022). In this scenario, research pointed to the strategic role of vocational education and training (VET) in the prevention of ELET (Cedefop 2020; Marhuenda-Fluixá, 2019) and the need for improvement and development of this training, which is still characterised by low participation and high drop-out rates with over half of students estimated to drop out of this training without the corresponding qualification (Martínez-Morales & Marhuenda-Fluixà, 2020; Salvà-Mut et al., 2020). Against this background, we consider implementing the COSI.ed,project in Initial and Continuing VET be vital. The project promotes a rethinking of the teaching and learning processes by situating students, who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out, at the centre, based on their own experiences and knowledge, with the aim of promoting the development of skills and competencies to contribute to the further development of their sense of self-efficacy (Gravesen et al., 2021). In this paper, we present the preliminary results of the COSI.ed project implementation in the regional context of the Balearic Islands. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 young people who started their training in the 2021-22 academic year in two VET centres: Sociedad Cooperativa Jovent and Naüm Proyecto Socioeducativo. At the same time, 6 interviews were carried out with the trainers (role models) to gather their first impressions on the implementation of the project. The results point to an improvement in the learning and learning processes of the students as well as their engagement with special emphasis on the relationship with teachers. Related to the trainers, although they highlight the benefits of the project, their voices denote certain resistance to change. This is why, in the project’s second phase, emphasis should be placed on improving their involvement.

Cedefop (2020). Vocational Education and Training in Europe, 1995-2035: Scenarios for European Vocational Education and Training in the 21st Century. No 114.Publications Office of the European Union. Cedefop reference series. http://data.europa. eu/doi/10.2801/794471 Council of the European Union (2021). Council Resolution (2021/C 66/01) on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030). Official Journal of the European Union, 26-11-2021. EUROSTAT (2022). Database. Early leavers from education and training by sex and labour status. https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=edat_lfse_14&lang=en Gravesen, D. T., Stuart, K., Bunting, M., Mikkelsen, S. H., and Frostholm, P. H. (Eds.). (2021). Combatting marginalisation by co-creating education: methods, theories and practices from the perspectives of young people. Emerald Group Publishing. Marhuenda-Fluixá, F. (Ed.) (2019). The School-Based Vocational Education and Training System in Spain: Achievements and Controversies. Vol. 32. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-981- 13-8475-2. Martínez-Morales, I. & Marhuenda-Fluixà, F. (2020). Vocational Education and training in Spain: steady improvement and increasing value. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 72(2), 209-227. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2020.1729840 Salvà-Mut, F., Ruiz-Pérez, M., Psifidou, I., & Oliver-Trobat, M. F. (2020). Formación profesional de grado medio y abandono temprano de la educación y la formación en España: una aproximación territorial. Bordón. Revista de Pedagogía, 72(4), 95-116

Internationally, as well as in a Danish context, a relatively high level of education in the population has increasingly become a prerequisite for both individual and national success and stability on the (inter)national labor market and in global competition (Thomsen & Andrade 2016). Thus, the importance of young people having equal opportunities for entering and staying and finishing education has become goal for education policies (European Commission, 2017). However, empirical studies indicate that when it comes to educational equity, making education accessible for all students will not ensure equal educational outcomes, there are still various barriers preventing young people to succeed in education. Educational mobility in Europe as well as in Denmark is thus still relatively low and the dropout rate relatively high, especially for socio-economically challenged pupils and students (Karlson & Landersø, 2021). Implementing an upscaled MaCE-model focusing on the good practices from the former Erasmus+ project Marginalisation and co-creation in new partner schools, is the core objective of COSI.ed project. This in trying to prevent dropout and support students in reentering or completing education, making the schools more inclusive and relational oriented. The model focuses on a rethinking of teaching with a strong focus on student engagement, student-teacher relations and using an indirect approach inspired pedagogy (Gravesen et al., 2021). But how is it to be a young person in a marginalized position in education – and (therefore) in society? How does it feel as a young person not being able to live up to societal norms for education and adult life course? Which experiences does young people situated on the margins of education have with the school system, teachers, social workers, municipalities etc.? Using the indirect interviewing method, and ethnographic inspired fieldwork in the Danish COSI.ed partner school for young people in vulnerable positions, this PhD-project examines this, asking how students in vulnerable positions experience and understand their own life conditions and opportunities/barriers in the context of their educational trajectories (Frostholm & Walker, 2021; Moshuus & Eide, 2016). And furtherly asking how it is to be met and approached differently in the COSi.ed partner school in Denmark. In using the indirect approach, closely connected to the ethnographic interview (Spradley, 1979) and lifeworld-oriented interviewing methods (Brinkmann, 2020) I seek in-depth understandings in trying to let the young people guide the conversation as much as possible. In this presentation, I will present the preliminary findings of the project.

Brinkmann, S. (2020). Unstructured and semistructured interviewing. In P. L. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research: Second Edition (2 ed., pp. 424-456). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.22 European Commission, (2017). Communication from the commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a renewed EU agenda for higher education. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52017DC0247 Frostholm, P., & Walker, S. (2021). The Indirect Approach – The Basics, the Craft and the Ethics (pp. 61–75). https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-448-620211006 Gravesen, D. T., Stuart, K., Bunting, M., Mikkelsen, S. H., and Frostholm, P. H. (Eds.). (2021). Combatting marginalisation by co-creating education: methods, theories and practices from the perspectives of young people. Emerald Group Publishing. Karlson, K. B., & Landersø, R. (2021). The Making and Unmaking of Opportunity: Educational Mobility in 20th Century-Denmark. København: The ROCKWOOL Foundation Research Unit Moshuus, G. H., & Eide, K. (2016). The Indirect Approach: How to Discover Context When Studying Marginal Youth. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1), 160940691665619. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406916656193 Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning. Thomsen, J-P., & Andrade, S. B. (2016, dec 22). Uddannelsesmobilitet i Danmark. SFI - Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Velfærd. SFI Tema Nr. 03:2016

Social inclusion and inclusive education are key priorities in the Europe 2020 strategy and among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the formulation of such goals, there is extensive evidence that various types of barriers are preventing young Europeans from being successfully integrating into society. Those successful at school come primarily from high socioeconomic backgrounds (Broer,Bai & Fonseca, 2019; Chung, 2015). This factor influences their success at school in terms of engagement, grades and their performance in upper secondary school (Alexander, Entwisle & Horsey 1997; Benner, Boyle & Sadler, 2016). From this perspective we argue that the educational system reproduces inequalities, and that many of those struggling have experienced a lack of social inclusion. Social inclusion through education is therefore vital to individual and society as a whole.

This symposium focuses on the project Erasmus+ KAIII “Co-created Education through Social Inclusion” (COSI. Ed). COSI.ed is an upscale of the proven good practice from the Erasmus+ project; Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE). The COSI.ed project intends to develop a comprehensive model for social inclusion of pupils in the risk zone for social exclusion and dropout, as well as a political strategy that can be used throughout Europe. Central in the project are the four cornerstones: 1) context (background, schooling and cultural/national, 2) Co-creating (egalitarian perspective to learning, acknowledging competence in the expert as well as the learner), 3) indirect approach (how to communicate with children vulnerable positions to give them voice) (Moshuus & Eide; 2016) and 4) Equality Literacy (what support or hinder learning, for the expert to understand and to empower the learner to)(Stuart.et.al 2019)

The COSI.ed project is conducted in five different countries and educational contexts representing Southern (Portugal and Spain), Eastern (Poland) and Northern Europe (Norway and Denmark). The objective of the project is to prevent and reduce Early School Leaving from Education and training (ELET)and contribute to change of policy. The ambition is to portray an inclusive educational practice for theorists, researchers, educational authorities, and stakeholders to provide theoretical perspectives to practitioners to strengthen their educational work , provide more equal educational opportunities and preventing school dropouts. Following this project we have the Collaborate Competence Groups (CCG) where the pupils, students, politician, professor and teacher meet to analyses, advice and support the project nationally and internationally.

Co- creation in public sector refers to joint working between people or groups who have traditionally been separated into categories of user and producer (Durose, 2017). When young people and other stakeholders’ experiences and tacit knowledge is included in development and implementation of new practices they are experienced as more useful than practices developed and imposed in a ‘top down’ approach(Shamrowa&Cumings,2017).

COSI.ed builds on the understanding that educational staff, role models and the pupils co-create as part of a community of practice. Role models collaborate and share knowledge and experience with students to further develop our approach. By using the embedded methodology pupils learn about themselves, how to excel and the educational staff develop skills and understanding to socially include the pupils.

The collection of studies forms a novel opportunity to discuss strengths and weaknesses of upscaling a co-created model for achieving social inclusion in European countries with diverse contextual characteristics. The symposium contributes to further knowledge about models for social inclusion by focusing on social disadvantage pupils as well as the various teachers’ good practices. In two subsequent symposia we will present the COSI.ed project and the overall design in the first paper. Through the next five papers we will present challenges related to implementation of COSI.ed in the participating countries.

The relationship between adults, such as teachers, educators, pedagogues and their pupils or wards in Polish educational institutions is strongly rooted in traditional perceptions of education and is heavily marked by distance, power imbalance and hierarchy. Research shows that Polish students do not trust teachers (Jankowska, 2013) and the perceived possible support from them in challenging situations is relatively low (Wrona, Małkowska-Szkutnik & Tomaszewska-Pękała, 2015). This may lead to resistance to schooling and student-teacher relationships, which Paul Downes described as “a diametric space of assumed separation, closure and mirror image inversions” (2016). Such processes are particularly evident in institutions aimed at working with young people at risk of social maladjustment, which are based on coercion through the use of various disciplinary and punitive methods (Granosik, Gulczyńska & Szczepanik, 2019). The research shows that in many of these institutions prevails a controlling and restrictive social climate ( Staniaszek, 2018). At the same time, a positive relationship with a significant other is one of the most important protective and compensatory factors (Masten, 2014; Powell, 2015), especially for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds whose immediate environment often lacks a model of a supportive relationship with an adult (Clarke&Thévenon, 2022; OECD, 2019). The COSI.ed project aims to create a working model in which, through an indirect approach, equality literacy and co-creation, diametrical relationships are to be broken and the chance to change a culture of resistance towards a concentric relationship i.e. connection and openness as a precondition for trust, care and voice is created (Downes 2016). The main target group of the project are young people at risk of leaving school early. In the presentation we discuss the challenges of implementing this innovative model of working with young people at risk of educational and social exclusion in two Warsaw institutions - a special educational centre and a youth sociotherapy centre. We will include the perspective of young people as well as that of the staff of these institutions, highlighting the risks and opportunities that a bridging and empowering working model opens up for them.

Clarke, C. and O. Thévenon (2022), Starting unequal: How’s life for disadvantaged children?, OECD Papers on Well-being and Inequalities, No. 06, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a0ec330c-en. Downes, P. (2016). Developing a Framework of System Change between Diametric and Concentric Spaces for Early School Leaving Prevention, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 48:9, 899-914, DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2015.1079517 Granosik, M., Gulczyńska, A., & Szczepanik, R. (2019). Przekształcanie klimatu społecznego ośrodków wychowawczych dla młodzieży nieprzystosowanej społecznie (MOS i MOW), czyli o potrzebie rozwoju dyskursu profesjonalnego oraz działań upełnomocniających. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego. Jankowska, A. (2013). Nauczyciel (nie)godny zaufania. Edukacja Humanistyczna, 2 (29), 235-244. Masten, A. S. (2014). Ordinary magic: Resilience in development. New York, NY: Guilford. OECD (2019), Changing the Odds for Vulnerable Children: Building Opportunities and Resilience, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a2e8796c-en. Powell, K. M. (2015). A Strengths-Based Approach for Intervention with At-Risk Youth, Champaign IL: Research Press. Staniaszek, M. (2018). Diagnoza klimatu społecznego młodzieżowych ośrodków wychowawczych w Polsce. Studia Paedagogica Ignatiana, 21(1), 175-197. Wrona, A., Małkowska-Szkutnik, A., & Tomaszewska-Pękała, H. (2015). Perceived support from parents, teachers and peers as a factor of early leaving from upper secondary schools in Poland. Przegląd Socjologiczny, 1(LXIV (64)), 61-80.

Converging with European policies and goals that value the role of education and training in social inclusion, Portugal has been developing efforts to reduce early-school leaving, including the enlargement of compulsory schooling to 12 years and the reinforcement of vocational educational tracks (Araújo et al., 2014). However, student grade repetition and related equity concerns remain challenging, thus being key policy areas (OECD, 2020). Second-chance schools have been a recent policy measure to support young adults' transition back to education and training, with practices that invest in high recognition of students' life situations (Macedo et al., 2018). Bearing in mind reducing early-school leaving, we conducted a study in which a model was applied that privileges the Indirect Approach as a methodology that uses communication, thus giving voice to young people in vulnerable situations. Disadvantaged situations that can hinder learning can be identified in the young people's life stories. The Indirect Approach is an explorative method through which the recognition of impactful and unknown realities is intended. Ideally, the intervention session should take the shape of storytelling, letting the young informant guide the conversation (Frostholm & Walker, 2021; Moshuus & Eide, 2016). This paper presents and discusses the ways the Indirect Approach being upscaled in the COSI.ed project was adapted and applied to a sample of five young people in a second-chance school of the metropolitan region of Porto, in a partnership between educational researchers, Education Sciences Master students and educational professionals from the schools. We will describe the intervention inspired by the Indirect Approach and discuss the preliminary results of the monitoring study through semi-structured interviews with two master's students and one teacher who used the methodology, as well as questionnaires distributed to 21 young people chosen by convenience. The discussion will center on some of the model's strengths and weaknesses as seen through the actors' perspectives and experiences, as well as its relationships with students' engagement with schooling in general, and the second-chance school in particular. Concerning the conversations topics, the results showed that young people have expectations about their educational and professional future, and most of them know what job they want and how to achieve it. The relationship between policies (Veiga, 2014) and practices that provide opportunities for students at risk of exclusion to tell their life stories and emphasize disadvantaged situations that can hinder their learning will also be highlighted in order to support policy recommendations.

Araújo, H., Magalhães, A., Rocha, C., & Macedo, E. (2014). Education/social and measures regarding ESL in nine partner countries. In: REDUCING EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING IN EUROPE (RESL) (org.). Policies on Early School Leaving in Nine European Countries: A Comparative Analysis (University of Antwerp). Frostholm, P., & Walker, S. (2021). The Indirect Approach – The Basics, the Craft and the Ethics (pp. 61–75). https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-448-620211006 Macedo, E., Santos, S., A., & Aarújo, H., C. (2018). How can a second chance school support young adults’ transition back to education? European Educational Research Journal, 53(4), 452–455. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12312 Moshuus, G. H., & Eide, K. (2016). The Indirect Approach. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406916656 OCDE. (2020). Education Policy Outlook: Portugal. www.oecd.org/education/policy-outlook/country-profile-Portugal-2020.pdf Veiga, A. (2014). Researching the Bologna Process through the Lens of the Policy Cycle. In: Teodoro, A., Guilherme, M. (eds) European and Latin American Higher Education Between Mirrors. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-545-8_7.

Policy efforts are increasingly aimed at addressing the challenges of early school leaving. Following national goals to increase upper secondary school completion (Meld. St. 21 2020–2021), "Co-created Social Inclusion in Education" (COSI.ed) have collaborated with young people in an upper secondary vocational school in Norway characterized by a challenging socio-economic context. 'Equality Literacy Framework'(EQL) (Stuart et al., 2021) concerns theoretical, practical and research perspectives addressing factors that promote and inhibit equal educational opportunities (context, personal life experiences, positioning from other people, oppressive or liberating structures, self-understanding, and individual choices). EQL is used for research and assessment purposes to understand factors and dimensions important for young people’s learning, as well as to improve the learning environment for students who are at risk of early school leaving. The model is rooted in a bioecological, systemic view. The model thus captures relationships between the individual student and the different contexts at micro, meso and macro level: Teacher- student- relationships (Krane et al 2016), relationships with peers, family relations, quality of school life (Tangen, 2009) and sociocultural contexts are pinpointed as vital to preventing early school leaving. A life-history perspective shows how the relationships between the individual and the different contexts change over time. We used a visual ethnography method aiming to understand and facilitate a more equal and inclusive school environment based on the EQL framework. (Berg, 2008). 23 students in a vocational upper secondary school in Norway have participated. By visualizing their own school narratives they have developed a new understanding of their learning paths. These school narratives have been interpreted and discussed between students and teachers in a classroom setting. Moreover, the school narrative approach has been discussed in a Collaborative Competence (CCG) group (consistent of stakeholders: two upper secondary students, one teacher, one policy maker, one higher education student and one researcher) to analyze how these narratives could be understood at a macro level and how the approach can be further developed. According to preliminary findings, students who construct their own school narratives and learning paths show greater awareness and engagement in their own school path. Teachers reported a positive development in the relationships with their students and in the overall teacher- student-relationship. Both teachers and students have reported an improvement in quality of school life. Challenges of the method are related to boundaries and ethical considerations between private spheres and school life.

Berg, B. L. (2008). Visual ethnography. In: L. M. Given (Ed.). The SAGE Encyclopedia of qualitative research methods. S. 934-937 http://www.yanchukvladimir.com/docs/Library/Sage%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Qualitative%20Research%20Methods-%202008.pdf Krane, V., Ness, O., Holter-Sorensen, N., Karlsson, B., & Binder, P. E. (2017). ‘You notice that there is something positive about going to school’: how teachers’ kindness can promote positive teacher–student relationships in upper secondary school. International Journal of adolescence and Youth, 22(4), 377-389. Meld. St. 21 (2020-2021). The completion reform - with open doors to the world and the future. [Fullføringsreformen – med åpne dører til verden og fremtiden] https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld.-st.-21-20202021/id2840771/?ch=1 Stuart, K. & Gravesen, D. T. (2021). Equality Literacy Framework. In: Gravesen, D. T., Stuart, K. Bunting, M., Mikkelsen, S. H. & Frostholm, P.H. (2021). Combating marginalization by co-creating education. Methods, theories, and practices from the perspectives of young people. Emerald publishing. Chapter 4. Equality Literacy Framework. (pp. 47-60). Combating marginalization by co-creating education | Emerald insights Tangen, R. (2009). Conceptualising quality of school life from pupils’ perspectives: A four‐dimensional model. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 13(8), 829-844.

Two international agendas are shaping current scientific discourses around diversity in education. On the one hand, debates and research activities on achievement, competencies, and output orientation have gained importance, strengthened in particular by large-scale assessments (e.g., Pereyra et al., 2011). On the other hand, in particular, concerning international normative frames (United Nations 2015), a stronger focus on inclusion and the reduction of educational inequity has been put into focus (Seitz, Auer & Bellacicco, in press). Linked to both discourses, the role of schools in replicating and reinforcing educational inequities has been the subject of many debates at the international level (Florian et al., 2016).

According to theoretical assumptions on education governance (Wilkins & Olmedo, 2018) it can be assumed that the varying structures of the different educational systems regarding tracking and inclusion are influential for interpretations of these international agendas at different levels. Of particular interest in that context are concepts of achievement and giftedness, as well as achievement differences that can be seen as emerging in assessment-related interactions between students and teachers but are also dependent on specific structural orders (Falkenberg 2020).

Thus, a crucial presumption of the symposium is that achievement and giftedness are central and powerful constructs of schooling related to assessment. Seen as a social practice between teachers and students, assessment links tohabitual assignment problems and hegemonies and the production and negotiation of social differences (Gomolla, 2012). These relations are discussed differently in different countries. With a focus on stratified systems, assessment is partly understood as a regulation of individual educational pathways, recurring to a structural-functionalist perspective, which receives criticism as reinforcing educational inequity by one-sidedly attributing (in specific low or inadequate) achievement to the individual (Pfeffer, 2008; Berkemeyer, 2018).

Based on these considerations, the symposium asks for the varying meanings of achievement and giftedness in assessment-related practices in differently structured educational systems and on different levels of them. In concrete, we bring (1) together the voices of primary school children on assessment in an inclusive educational system (Italy) with (2) a study on views of teenagers (Spain/ Mexico) on assessment and (3) those of parents on achievement and giftedness, located in a highly segregated educational system (Germany). The findings from (4) an international discourse analysis on the scientific discourse around giftedness, achievement, and inclusion may function as a parenthesis between the different studies so that the final discussion will allow us to reflect on possible theory-related conclusions and research-related implications in a broader frame.

Parents find themselves in a position between school and home when it comes to the support for “giftedness” of their children and are thereby confronted with specific roles and school-based expectations of “doing good parent” (cf. Schwermann & Seitz 2023). Amplifying this, the German educational system can be seen as highly structured concerning the segregation of children in secondary schools on account of their developed habitus (cf. Helsper, Kramer & Thiersch 2014). The following study reverses the heavily school-based focus on parenthood in “gifted education” and turns to the perspectives of parents on talent promotion in schools. In accordance with the findings of the study, three different parental types were derived, showing that the central role of parents is to act as advocates for their children´s needs in school-based measures for talent promotion (cf. Schwermann, Rott & Kaiser 2023). The findings of the study have been obtained by a qualitative approach of reconstructive social research (cf. Döring & Bortz 2016), using twenty narrative interviews (cf. Nohl 2017) with parents at primary and secondary schools in Germany in 2021. The interviews took place at schools which participate in the nationwide project "Achievement Makes School" (2018-2023). In the data analysis, one interview of a parent forms a case to be interpreted. The main cases were selected on the basis of maximum and minimum variance until a theoretical saturation was reached. Thereby three different parental types of orientations and practices could be figured out, which shed a light on the role of parents in talent promotion. The data analysis was carried out using the documentary method (cf. Bohnsack 2017) and is completed at this point of the research process. Finally, the study results show that two of three derived parental types adapt to the belief system of “normal” and “special” children, whereby the specialization of “gifted” children becomes a heterotopia, a place outside the supposedly “normality” (cf. Böker 2022). The first type will use the term “giftedness” to gain access to special talent promotion for their child, whereas the second type resists the implied hierarchization by understanding children as different but equal. The third type assumes that their child is not comparable to anyone and does not fit into the constructed grid of “normal” and “special” - which glosses over negative aspects, like masking capital-related inequality. Nevertheless, all types have in common that their practices are seen as beneficial to the child´s well-being.

Böker, A. (2022): Begabtenförderung als Heterotopie im deutschen Bildungssystem: Zur Integration des Modells der Rechtfertigungsordnung in die Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. In: S. Bosančić & R. Keller (ed.): Diskurse, Dispositive und Subjektivitäten. Anwendungsfelder und Anschlussmöglichkeiten in der wissenssoziologischen Diskursforschung, pp. 15-29. Bohnsack, R. (2017): Praxeologische Wissenssoziologie. Opladen: Leske u. Budrich. Döring, N. & Bortz, J. (2016): Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation in den Sozial- und Humanwissenschaften. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Helsper, W., Kramer, R.-T. & Thiersch, S. (2014) (ed.): Schülerhabitus. Theoretische und empirische Analysen zum bourdieuschen Theorem der kulturellen Passung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Nohl, A.-M. (2017): Interview und Dokumentarische Methode. Anleitungen für die Forschungspraxis. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Schwermann, A., Rott, D. & Kaiser, M. (2023, in press): Für Begabungsförderung bleibt wenig Zeit! Perspektiven von Eltern auf eine potenzialorientierte Schule. In: M. Kaiser, B. Laudenberg & D. Rott (ed.): Begabung. Friedrich Jahresheft 2023. Hannover: Friedrich-Verlag, pp. 72-73. Schwermann, A. & Seitz, S. (2023, in press): Handlungsspielräume und Rollen von Eltern in der Begabungs- und Leistungsförderung. In: M. Hoffmann, T. Hoffmann, L. Pfahl, M. Rasell, H. Richter, R. Seebo, M. Sonntag & J. Wagner (ed.): Tagungsband zur IFO 2022. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt, pp. 303-309

The question of the relationship between learning documentation, the role of assessment, and inclusion-related quality requirements for teaching has hardly been empirically researched so far (Moon et al., 2020; Seitz et al., 2020). Taking this up, we conducted a study on the primary school level in Italy, which is an inclusively structured educational system that comes up without any allocation to different types of school until the end of year 8 and requires descriptive report cards instead of numeral grading until the end of year 5 of primary school since 2020. As existing studies on assessment often include the perspective of teachers but rarely that of children (Imperio & Seitz, in press), the study “Children's Perceptions of Performance in Primary Schools" (CrisP) focuses on those, framing its design on the Childhood Studies paradigm (Melton et al., 2014) and the Student Voice movement (Cook-Sather, 2018). Considering children as expert actors and key informants of their school life, the study reconstructs their perception of achievement and assessment under the structural conditions of diversity and asks for possible interpretive patterns regarding normalcy and processes of doing difference. Framed by classroom observations, we listened to thirty-six third graders’ voices, conducting material-based narrative interviews. Based on an overall analysis of the data referring to the working steps of Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1996) and the reconstruction of dense sequences with the Documentary Method (Bohnsack, Pfaff & Weller, 2010), we developed individual case portraits. Based on a condensed presentation of overarching findings, this presentation focuses on the contrasting voices of two children from two diverse primary schools who discuss, in detail, role expectations and social processes concerning assessment and reporting. More specifically, this presentation inquiries about how differences and diversity are handled.

Bohnsack, R., Pfaff, N., & Weller, W. (Eds.). (2010). Qualitative Analysis and Documentary Method In International Educational Research (1st ed.). Verlag Barbara Budrich. Cook-Sather, A. (2018). Tracing the evolution of student voice in educational research. In Bourke, R. & Loveridge, J. (eds.), Radical collegiality through student voice. Educational experience, policy and practice (pp. 17-38). Singapore: Springer. Imperio, A., & Seitz, S. (in press). Positioning of children in research on assessment practices in primary school. In S. Seitz, P. Auer, & R. Bellacicco (Eds.), Inclusion in an international Perspective – Educational Justice in the Focus. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich. Melton, G. B., Gross-Manos, D., Ben-Arieh, A., & Yazykova, E. (2014). The nature and scope of child research: learning about children’s lives. In G. B. Melton, A. Ben-Arieh, J. Cashmore, G. S. Goodman & N. K. Worley (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Child Research (pp. 3-28). SAGE Publications Ltd. Strauss, A. L. and Corbin, J. (1996). Grounded Theory: Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung. Weinheim: Psychologie-Verlag-Union

The pursue of inclusiveness is an important common goal at basic educational systems nowadays. Not only learning to learn is a principal competence to develop, but also doing so in acceptance of different points of departure regarding teaching goals, and also in prevision of different learning, abilities, experiences and achievement. This study focuses on exploring a new assessment proposal using written exams with a particular design to foster metacognitive awareness and learners’ engagement, with an explicit consideration for inclusiveness, called Synchronous Self-Assessment (SSA) (Remesal, 2021). This strategy leads students to take two important decisions on their learning assessment: picking assessment activities to respond and deciding on the weighed grading among them. The fact of having to take these decisions directly affect students’ emotions and self-efficacy in the assessment situation, also catering for inclusiveness, since participation is facilitated with the traditional “one-size-fits-all” left aside. This strategy has been successfully implemented for over a decade at Bachelor Degree (Remesal & Estrada, 2022; Estrada, 2021). For the first time, this innovative strategy is implemented at Secondary Education. The participants in this study were 100 7th grade (12-13 years old) high school students from an urban school in the state of Yucatan, Mexico. Students (assigned to experimental or control group) resolved a written exam in the third term of the school year, in their mother tongue subject (Spanish). The research follows a mixed-method design: students were invited to answer a non-linguistic (hence, minimally intrusive) emotions test before and after the exam. Later on, an open-ended questionnaire was also responded and eventually a small selection of students are interviewed individually. In this symposium we present results relating to these students’ emotional reactions to their first experience of synchronous self-assessment. Preliminary results reveal some differences in emotions prior to and after solving the exam. Positive emotions prior to the exam showed a general increase –though not significant. In emotions after the exam, we found a significant increase in the sense of control among the students experiencing SSA for this first time. In the individual interviews, adolescent students manifested altogether a positive reception of this new assessment strategy. Most of them express their appreciation of having the opportunity to take the two decisions offered by SSA (concerning which tasks to solve and how to weigh grades on them). Hence, SSA proves to be useful at compulsory secondary level.

Estrada, F.G. (2021). Revisión y modificación de concepciones del profesorado sobre la evaluación a través de la autoevaluación sincrónica. Paper presented at Xv Congresso Internazionale sull’educazione e l’innovazione. Firenze, Dec.13th-15th. Remesal, A. (2021). Synchronous Self-Assessment: Assessment from the other Side of the Mirror. In: Z. Yan & L.Yang (Eds) Assessment as learning: Maximising opportunities for student learning and achievement. Routledge. Remesal, A.; Estrada, F.G. (2022). Boosting students’ engagement through synchronous self-assessment: a first in-depth look. Paper presented at SIG1+4 EARLI. Cádiz June 27th-30th,-2022. Remesal, A.; Estrada, F.G.; Corrial, C.L. (2022). Exams for the purpose of meaningful learning: new chances with synchronous self-assessment. In J.L.Gómez-Ramos & I.Mª Gómez-Barreto (Eds.) Design and Measurement Strategies for Meaningful Learning. IGI-Global, chapter 10, 192-211.

With regard to the making and processing of school achievement, giftedness and inclusion, on the international level there is broad consensus that successful education systems are characterized by above-average achievement and below-average educational inequalities (OECD, 2015). Taking this up, we ask in our study achievement, inclusion, and giftedness are discussed in relation to one another in the international scientific discourse. There are some studies on the connection between giftedness and achievement and, in the broadest sense, inclusion on the level of students, teaching and the institutional or structural level (e.g. Böker & Horvarth, 2018; Kiso & Lagies, 2019; Seitz et al., 2016; Wienand, 2022). However, the level of discourse has been omitted so far (Seitz & Kaiser, i.p.; Seitz et al, 2021). The aim of the discourse analysis is therefore to shed light on the rules according to which giftedness, achievement, and inclusion are dealt with in the international scientific discourse. To analyse the narrative structures concerning the relation between the concepts of giftedness, achievement, and inclusion and their structural conditions, the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD; Keller, 2013) was used. The data corpus was compiled by database search via ERIC (N= 97), while according to theoretical sampling along minimum and maximum variance 23 texts were included in the analyses. As a result, an overarching narrative formation on giftedness, achievement, and inclusion within the scientific discourse can be outlined. This narrative formation arises from five steps that structure the discourse: In a first step, the concepts of giftedness and achievement are related to inclusion. In a second step, this relationship is problematised with reference to educational policy agendas and a polarisation of the group of students described as high-achievers and those described as low-achievers is constructed. In a third step, group-specific interventions are presented for the groups of “gifted” students constructed in this way. Finally, these are explained by means of the underlying dispositif of achievement. Where relations to educational equity are put into focus, this is done with diverging understandings and conceptualisations of equity (Seitz et al., 2021). In our presentation, we will use two contrasting examples of the analysis to show how differences are produced and hierarchized by the construction of at-risk groups in the discourse of giftedness and achievement.

Böker, A. & Horvarth, K. (Eds.) (2018). Begabung und Gesellschaft. Sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf Begabung und Begabtenförderung. Springer VS. Kaiser, M. & Seitz, S. (2023): Giftedness and Achievement within Discourses. In: S. Seitz, P. Auer & R. Bellacicco (Eds). International Perspectives on Inclusive Education – In the Light of Educational Justice. (pp. 67-88) Budrich (in press). Keller, R. (2013): Doing Discourse Research: An Introduction for Social Scientists. SAGE Kiso, C. & Lagies, C. (Eds.) (2019). Begabungsgerechtigkeit. Perspektiven auf stärkenorientierte Schulgestaltung in Zeiten von Inklusion. Springer VS. Seitz, S., Pfahl, L., Lassek, M., Rastede, M., & Steinhaus, F. (2016). Hochbegabung inklusive: Inklusion als Impuls für Begabungsförderung an Schulen. Beltz. Seitz, S.; Kaiser, M. Auer, P. & Bellacicco, R. (2021): Achievement, Giftedness and Inclusion: Analyses and Perspectives Regarding Inequality. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the Journal Scuola Democratica “Reinventing Education”, (VOL. 2), 805-816. Wienand, C. Y. (2022). Die Herstellung einer Begabungskultur in der Kindheit. Springer VS.