Conference Agenda

Network 30 Environmental and Sustainability Education Research has reached the age of 10, and this session is dedicated to celebrating this milestone.

For those of us who want to join via zoom, please, use the following link: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/61233457685?from=addon

We use this opportunity to discuss major shifts, contributions, challenges and achievements in ESE Research over the past decade with perspectives from Europe and beyond. ‘European’ is here used as a reflexive concept, to be played with, criticized and transcended.

We start with an introduction from our founding Link Convenor: Per Sund who will share some of the history of the network.

There will be short introductions from a panel with researchers from Europe and beyond, including:

Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Rhodes University, South Africa;

Greg Mannion, University of Stirling, United Kingdom;

Marcia McKenzie, University of Melbourne, Australia;

Johan Öhman, University of Örebro, Sweden;

Arjen E. J. Wals, Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

We will provide space for group talks (physically and in break out rooms) with the aim of identifying some questions for the panel, and a final plenary, including details about upcoming events and opportunities from the network.

Elsa Lee, Stefan Bengtsson and Ole Andreas from the convener group chair will chair this session.

The importance of parental involvement in education is becoming increasingly recognized in education policies at both the local and global levels. Linkages between parental involvement and academic achievement (Mapp, 2013) have been well articulated in education literature. Parents' values regarding the importance of schooling affect the school attendance of their children (Irwin, et al., 1978) whereas their partnership with the school has been proven to be effective in order to reduce chronic absenteeism (Sheldon & Epstein, 2004). Parents can hold the schools accountable for their child’s learning by putting pressure on schools and influencing schools and policies informally and formally (OECD, 2021). This puts parents in a pivotal role in improving both the school and home learning environment. This study explores how these parents if brought together in a common forum could also influence the educational landscape of their community.

Community schools in Nepal are the largest provider of Basic education with 76 percent of schools in Nepal as community schools (GoN, 2021). The National Education Policy, 2076, links good governance of Community schools to active participation and representation of community members in school management (GoN, 2020). It indicates a policy-level improvement in the effective participation of community members in the School Management Committee (SMC) and meaningful participation in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). The newly amended Education sector plan 2021 – 2030 postulates ‘maintaining the attraction and trust of parents towards community school’ as one of the main challenges of the educator sector in Nepal (GoN, 2021). However, Community schools in Nepal are considered to be government entities although education acts and policies devolve the responsibility to the community itself. The reluctance of community schools to involve the parents in the decision-making process (CERID, 2009) and parents oblivious about their roles and responsibilities has widened the gap between the two. The existing deficit discourse has negatively affected the students in terms of their academic achievement, school regularity, and school enrollment. (Pherali, 2021). One of the strategies to overcome this challenge is to increase parents’ involvement and engagement in education through regular dialogues.

This study focuses on children aged 6 to 14 years, officially at the age of attending the Basic Education system (Grades 1-8) of Nepal but is Out of school. These students are either not enrolled in school, are school dropouts, or chronic absentees (absent for more than 1 month in a row). The study brings parents of these students together forming Action groups. The groups are then sensitized about the value of education, involved in the process of regular Conscientization (Freire, 1970), and encouraged to be more engaged with other parents in the community and community schools.

Through participatory action research (Bennet, 2004, Bergold & Thomas, 2012; Heyman, 2011), narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2006), and secondary data analysis, the research objective is to develop a systematic approach to parent engagement that would serve as a prototype that is replicable in a similar context.

The research questions include,

1. How do the parents understand, value, and use the out-of-school data to formulate effective action plans, implement the action plans and reflect on them leading to further action?
2. How will the values, beliefs, and behaviors of participants regarding the education of their children change as a result of participating in the study?
3. How does the meaningful engagement of parents in the action groups improve the education status of out-of-school children in the community?

The study includes the development, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of the impact of this participatory approach.

The Unified Educational Centres (CEUs) in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, have been an important intersectorial public policy with continuity throughout different administrations since its inauguration in 2003 that aims the promotion of public spaces in the periphery, reducing criminality and social exclusion. According to several studies about the effects of the implementation of CEUs, they take an important part in the rearrangement of the urban fabric.

Our collective action research is held at one of the 46 CEUs of São Paulo, CEU Uirapuru, in order to analyse the production of this space, its surroundings and its architecture, as well as the modes of interaction with local communities. The interdisciplinary and collaborative research, in an attempt of dialogue between areas of pedagogy, psychology, architecture, geography and environmental education, focuses on the following aspects: space, architecture and school organization; forms of appropriation and signification by the communities - uses and memories. Our work is divided into three subgroups: Memory and Education; Architecture; and Environmental Education. With this investigation and intervention, we intend to promote more inclusive school and cultural practices, to foster the culture of participation and citizenship and to contribute to increasing quality education, considering the importance of the defense of this policy at the present moment, when serious threats to its public and intersectorial character have been occurring.

In our analysis of CEU Uirapuru, we try to bring to discussion the importance of concepts such as space, place and territory, as well as appropriation, culture and history. We consider the analysis of authors such as Escolano (2001), about the importance of considering the location and disposition of schools in the urban plot of the cities, as an element of the curriculum, in taking into account the problems we have to face in Brazilian schools. According to Faria (2012), the conception of education that underlies their architecture has not managed to enter the 21st century and the classroom is still seen as the central place of knowledge production. But we would mainly mention the poor quality of buildings of public schools, from the 1960s on, when there were growing in school demand, showing the little importance given to education for popular classes (Lima, 1994). From the 1980s, a new conception in terms of school environment emerged and many proposals for renewal were made in some Brazilian states, according to Braga (2008). In attempts such as CEUs, we consider the importance of architectural complex as a place of social, cultural and symbolic dimension, as well as the importance of the social relationships established there in the constitution of the subjects. To do so, the study is based on the concepts of mediation (Vygotsky, 1995) and appropriation (Wertsch, 1994; Smolka, 2000) as well as on ideas developed by Daniels et al. (2015) about of the architectural design and its appropriation by the school staff for the students' learning. Haesbaert (2011), in dialogue with Lefebvre (2006), states that every identity is spatial, due to the fact that it is not performed in an abstract way, but contextualized in space-time, geographically, historically and symbolically perceived / lived. In this sense, the research deals with memories of the agents of CEU, and how they compose the daily life and the relationships with the space and of the subjects among themselves, based on authors such as Halbwachs (1990), Pollak (1992), Bosi (1994), among others.

Space and spatiality are constitutive dimensions of educational activity. Accordingly, questions about the socio-spatial constitution and design of social spatiality inevitably become virulent in the school context. In the last two decades, there has been a clear shift in the social sciences from absolute to relational conceptions of space, focusing more on the appropriation of social space by the actors involved and less on its local dimension as a static and predetermined structure (Kessl & Reutlinger, 2022; Dirks & Kessl 2012; Löw, 2001). Accordingly, social spaces are only produced through the individual and collective use (appropriation) of reified places by interacting actors. Nevertheless, the community surrounding a school is characterised by the infrastructure of its (geographical) catchment area, i.e. the living spaces of the respective pupils as well as their personal characteristics. These can be divided into groups and distinguished from one another, for example, on the basis of differences in parental income, the distribution of families receiving transfer payments or the proportion of single-parent households. Bourdieu (1991) speaks in this context of a "distribution structure of the various types of capital [...] in an ensemble of subspaces" (p. 28). The advantage of this perspective is that the schools community surroundings can be clearly described and operationalised, for example by calculating social indices (Schräpler & Forell, 2023). In this way, the challenges faced by schools can be made transparent and targeted for support. Determining social indices and making them transparent carries the risk of the so-called identification dilemma and thus of stigmatisation (Norwich, 2013). The aim of this contribution is to develop a recognition-theoretical approach to the schools community surroundings that moves away from a one-dimensional view of pupils as a product of their (social) origins (and accompanying performance limits) towards a bond-oriented focus on their strengths and potentials that creates a culture of diversity (Stojanov, 2011). On the basis of a multi-level modelling of the single-schools community surroundings, the structural condition of school is expanded by its interactive moment through the interweaving of their objective and subjective dimensions. As a result, social practices move to the centre of the consideration of schools community surroundings, which - shaped by the attitudes and patterns of the involved actors and their milieus - can be understood as a space of (im)possibility (Helsper 2009). Finally, in the tension filed between relations of recognition and experiences of disregard, a recognition-oriented paradigm of school culture is presented and discussed with regard to its potential for empirically developing a resource-oriented adaptation of the schools community surrounding.

School-based studies have revealed predominantly negative stereotypes held by (preservice) teachers toward students from lower classes (Dunkake & Schuchardt, 2015; Lange-Vester, 2015). Dunkake and Schuchart (2015) revealed in their study, that preservice teachers in Germany perceive students from low-class backgrounds as more aggressive, lazy, undisciplined, and unmotivated compared to students from middle-class origins. In another study, Glock and Kleen (2020) showed that preservice teachers in Germany were more likely to associate students with high SES with high language skills, high ability, and good working habits. These negative stereotypes contribute to biased performance expectations (Tobisch & Dresel, 2017). Accordingly, teachers' actions can be understood as pedagogical communication that is pre-structured by classification, evaluation, and judgment (Bourdieu, 1992). Following this theoretical perspective, class-specific stereotypes of (preservice) teachers can lead to a reproduction of educational inequality (Lange-Vester, 2015). Focusing on preservice teachers is important because university teaching approaches can help reduce negative stereotypes among preservice teachers (Kumar & Hamer, 2013).

Among individuals with low-class origins, a distinction can be made between welfare recipients, who receive welfare, and the working poor, who live below the poverty line without welfare support (Marx, 2020). Extracurricular studies show that welfare recipients face even more negative stereotypes compared to the working poor (Suomi et al., 2022). The more negative stereotypes refer, among other things, to a perceived lower conscientiousness and competence. To date, no studies exist that survey stereotypes of (preservice) teachers in relation to these two groups. Given the lack of studies investigating stereotypes of (preservice) teachers towards different low-class origins, this exploratory mixed-methods study aims to examine cultural stereotypes (Eagly & Mladinic, 1989) and individual stereotypes in the form of constructions of difference (West & Fenstermaker, 1995) of preservice teachers towards the working poor and welfare recipients.

Cross-national educational studies of student performance regularly show that socioeconomically disadvantaged students perform worse on average than their socioeconomically advantaged peers (OECD 2019; Stubbe et al. 2020). Bourdieu's theory of 'habitus' can be used as an approach to explain the reproduction of such social inequalities: while privileged groups of students inherit the cultural preconditions for successful adaptation to the educational system from their parents' homes, the familial habitus of non-privileged students may deviate from school values and requirements, so that it is often not performance but the "socially conditioned attitude" that is judged (Kramer, 2013). According to this, there is a lack of "habitus sensitivity" in everyday school life (Vester & Teiwes-Kügler, 2014), which is expressed in the fact that the lifeworlds of students and teachers are sometimes far apart, which can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings in class or when dealing with each other. In order to strengthen this "habitus sensitivity", it may be possible to provide teachers with appropriate knowledge about the social space of their students. As part of the Germany-wide educational project "SchuMas" (Schule macht stark), we developed an R-based tool that provides geo-referenced social space analyses based on small-scale social space data. Designed as a digital tool for social space exploration, the tool offers teachers the possibility to visualise different social indicators within the catchment area of schools on a city map. These indicators include, for example, the unemployment rate, the purchasing power or the educational level of the inhabitants. The representation at this area level makes it possible to get a differentiated picture of the social situation in the vicinity of the schools and thus to identify possible challenges and potentials within this social area on a quantitative basis. The distributions of the social indicators can be visualised on the basis of choropleth maps, for which various classification options are available (e.g. quantiles, "natural breaks"). Further possibilities for quantitative exploration of social space arise from the visual representation of the respective social indicators in the form of box plots, diagrams and in tabular form. In addition to a detailed description of the tool, our contribution will report on practical experiences of co-constructive collaboration with schools in challenging social spaces, where we have used our tool to offer teachers in the respective schools a workshop and an opportunity to reflect on the social space and the habitus of their students.

Theoretical Framework. The massive global diffusion of "radical" technologies (AITs) permeates the daily life of families and children (Floridi, 2017, 2020), bringing enormous potential but at the same time opening wide problematic spaces (Malavasi, 2019; Revelli, 2020); spaces among which homologation, synchronisation of conscience and unique thinking are the most insidious and worrying problems (Abott, 2014; Stiegler, 2014, 2015). These spaces are often difficult to manage for families, who find themselves displaced in their task of guiding (and containing) the relationship that children have with the AITs. Although the complexity of the current relationship between children and AITs is therefore undeniable, it is actually thanks to it (e.g. the use of stick, stone, graphic tools, ...) that human beings originally initiated and cultivated an extraordinary process of humanisation of themselves and the creative world (Ferraris, 2020; Remotti, 2011). Despite the fact that this original humanising function is still potentially quite alive, the evolution of technologies places in the foreground not only the current problems of homologation, but also real future risks. These risks are associated with the ever more unlimited power of the human being – and especially of future adults – to use technologies for the destruction of the self and nature as well as for the indiscriminate overcoming of the boundaries of the human condition (Brooks, 2017; Turing, 1950). There follows an important and urgent need for formation, a formation that guides the new generations in an early and universal way from primary school onwards to cultivate those particular human qualities - of thought and judgment (Arendt, 1978; Ricœur, 1995, 2001; OECD, 2019; Schleicher, 2020; Unesco, 2021) - necessary for the critical, creative and ethical orientation of the new AITs, so that they are still an opportunity for self-humanisation in an absolutely unique way. It is also an early formation that cannot exclude the involvement of families and community, precious educational spaces for the nourishment and direction of children's thought and judgment.

This training can find a particularly promising opportunity in visual aesthetic experiences (Dewey, 2005), exercising in children the ability to think and feel the experience (captured within the image) in a comprehensive and integral, critical and creative way (Bertin, 1974; Balzola & Rosa, 2011), allowing them to reconstruct the full sense of it, valuing aspects of diversity and divergence. They do so by promoting unique and individual processes of problematising and creative discernment and deliberation; the beginning of a new, revolutionary thought. The aesthetic-visual experience in fact nourishes the ability of children to value "diversities", which in turn become drivers and mediators for cultural and social change.

Among the aesthetic-visual experiences that can be proposed to children, one that can be particularly promising for education towards a critical and creative relationship with AIT is a digital art experience generated with AI. It is indeed a well-known experience at European and international level, still pioneering in primary school, which exercises children in a critical and creative relationship with the AITs not only evoking this same relationship (through the image), but making children have an active and personal experience of it (Fahlén, 2021).

Research Questions. How to train children in primary school to develop a critical and creative relationship with the AITs through aesthetic experiences of visual art generated with AI? How to involve families and community in this formative process? What specific educational outcomes can be achieved through these experiences?

Objectives. The paper aims at understanding whether, how and under what circumstances aesthetic experiences of visual art generated with AI can train children and families in a critical and creative relationship with AITs.

The term multichannel communication is usually used in a technical or marketing context. In this contribution, however, we propose to adopt it to the educational context in order to more adequately capture and understand the intricacy of family-school relations. Digital transformation has not only increased the diversity of available communication channels, including the adaptation of specific channels like messaging apps to the school context. It has also changed the quality of communication and opened new possibilities such as asynchronous exchanges or automated translations. This presentation reports findings from an exploratory study focusing on school websites as one of the first and most common digital communication channels for family-school relations. The interplay of the different channels, in particular the role of the website in this process, will be given special attention.

The importance of family-school relations and its positive effects on children’s developments is well documented (Sheridan & Moorman Kim, 2015), and various concepts focus on this connection, such as Epstein’s (1987) seminal model of overlapping spheres of influence. Overall, these models highlight communication as a key element. Family-school communication can either be perceived as being predominantly one way, i.e., schools meeting their basic obligations of informing parents about specific issues, or two-way, reflecting a partnership between the two parties (Epstein, 1987). The term partnership thereby reflects a shift in the notion of family-school relations towards a more equal footing, an approach which is rarely put into practice (among others: Olmstead, 2013).

Schools and families engage in communication both on an individual and a collective level, using a variety of communication channels such as short messages via general or school specific apps, e-mails, electronic newsletters, or websites in addition to phone calls, analogue notes, and personal contacts (Sacher, 2014). A growing body of literature suggests that digital technologies are changing and improving the way schools and families communicate with media-based contacts being considered to be more efficient, immediate, and convenient (Goodall, 2016; Bordalba & Bochaca, 2019). More specifically, school websites offer several technical features for communication and interaction, such as mail or telephone links, contact forms or chat functions. However, research shows that the potential of such technologies is rarely utilized (Taddeo & Barnes, 2016; Tavas and Bilač 2011).

To date, most of the existing empirical work focusing on the interface of family-school relations and digital media, specifically school websites, has been carried out in Anglo-Saxon countries (e.g., Gilleece & Eivers, 2018; Taddeo & Barnes, 2016). To our knowledge, no such specific studies were conducted in German-speaking countries, particularly Switzerland. More specifically, many existing studies were conducted in the context of free school choice and in countries where schools are obliged to maintain a school website, such as the UK. Contrary to this situation, Swiss schools are not obliged to have a school website and there is no free school choice for compulsory schooling. More generally, policies in Switzerland hardly regulate family-school relationships and the country’s federal structure with its three levels of policymaking contributes to a culture of interaction that is marked by personal beliefs (Ho & Vasarik Staub, 2019).

Therefore, this contribution aims to add to the fragmented body of knowledge on the use of digital media in family-school relations. It describes current practices in the use of websites by Swiss public schools and how they relate to other communication channels employed in family-school relations. We explore how family-school communication takes place through various channels and how these are interlinked. Specifically, we investigate, who (school leaders, teachers, parents) communicates what, using which channel (particularly websites, messages, phone calls, analogue notes), and to what effect.

Existing research emphasizes that parental involvement positively influences children’s development (e.g., Clarke et al., 2017). Concepts of parental involvement highlight the importance of outreach to families as an important aspect of preschool teachers’ professional roles (Hornby & Lafaele, 2011). Moreover, a few studies have shown that parents are more likely to be involved in their child’s education when the teachers make a stronger effort to engage them (e.g., Cutshaw et al., 2020). In Germany, preschools offer mostly a standard repertoire of partnership activities consisting of daily communication, helping at events, and attending parent meetings (e.g., Cohen & Anders, 2020). However, a lack of time, different interests, or language barriers often prevent the successful implementation of these partnership activities. As families continue to grow in diversity, it is necessary for preschool teachers to develop an awareness of diverse family dynamics, which call for the implementation of various activities to support families in different ways (Gándara, 2011). The use of digital media offers flexibility and increased accessibility for families, and thus the opportunity to overcome existing barriers and establish new approaches to parental involvement (e.g. Hall & Biermann, 2015). Despite the enormous potential of technology to improve reach and impact of preschool efforts to engage parents, previous research indicates that the use of digital media in cooperating with parents has not yet become common practice (e.g., Knauf, 2020; McFadden & Thomas, 2016). However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers faced challenges in finding new ways to cooperate with parents without face-to-face contact, and the use of digital tools has played an important role in this regard (e.g., Cohen et al., 2021). Accordingly, it is critical to examine teachers’ partnership practices in detail to gain insight into the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on preschool efforts to engage parents.

The current study therefore investigates (a) the frequency and intensity of teachers’ partnership practices in Germany, (b) and the role of digital media in partnership practices. Due to the use of quantitative diaries, this study makes a unique contribution to the body of existing research in describing processes of partnership practices on a daily level. In the second part, (c) the study also investigates what structural characteristics (e.g., teacher-child ratio) are related to aspects of partnership practices. The structural characteristics of preschools are thought to form the foundations for the kinds of processes that can take place within preschools (Pianta et al., 2005). Whereas the evidence on relations between structural features and children’s experiences has been well-established (see for an overview Slot, 2018), it remains unclear how these characteristics relate to parent-teacher interactions. The implications of our findings will be discussed in the light of the theoretical background as well as the results of previous studies in this context.

Studies have long emphasized the importance of the student-teacher relationship for the social adjustment, academic achievement, and overall wellbeing of students and pupils – particularly for those with a migration background (Bosman et al., 2018; Roorda et al., 2011; Suldo et al., 2009). Yet, this relationship is often under considerable strain for students with a migration background, as overall they assess the student-teacher relationship to be more negative (Agirdag et al., 2012). However, although classroom settings across Europe are becoming increasingly diverse, the proportion of teachers with ethnic minority background remains very limited (Overheid, 2021) Furthermore, teachers indicate that they often feel ill-prepared in building a strong relationship to their ethnic minority background pupils (Talis 2018).

Researchers have suggested that this incongruence in teachers’ and students’ ethnic background can negatively affect the student-teacher relationship (Thijs et al., 2012, 2018; van den Bergh et al., 2010). Studies on ‘ethnic congruence’ between students and teachers, or, put differently, studies researching the effect of having a teacher with a similar ethnic background, show a mixed image and many questions remain. First, we focus on the experiences of elementary school pupils with a migration background. Second, next to the mainstream schools there is a wide range of supplementary schooling. In these supplementary schools, which are organized by minority communities in the weekend, and which are widely attended by youth with migration background, minorized pupils usually share their ethnic-cultural backgrounds with the teachers. Here, we can explore the experience of minoritized children in varying educational contexts instead of comparing their experiences to those of majority peers. This enables us to explore if (and if so, how) ethnic congruence plays a role and how children perceive their relations with teachers in both contexts.

To ensure an extensive understanding of this relationship we consider insights from two different academic disciplines/domains. We build on social psychology research into the affective aspects of student-teacher relationships, exploring the notions of emotional bonding and security (Koomen & Jellesma, 2015). In addition, we rely on educational research emphasizing the academic aspects of the student teacher relationship, and we focus on the academic support and confirmation that pupils to receive from their teachers (Agirdag et al., 2012; Reddy et al., 2003). We understand the STR as two-dimensional, with an affective and an academic dimension and within these two dimensions we differentiate four characteristics that describe the quality of the STR from the students’ perspective: (1) closeness and emotional support, (2) conflict and negative experiences, both related to the affective dimension, and (3) academic support, and (4) teacher affirmation, both related to the academic dimension of teacher support.

In the European context there has not been a lot of research which focuses on the perception of minoritized pupils and the relationship to their teachers. Supplementary schools pose a unique to compare how the pupils view these relationships in one context where ethnic congruence is prevalent and one where it is not. These findings are of importance to practitioners and policy makers who aim to work at bettering minoritized pupils’ STR.

Minoritized communities confronted with persistent structural inequalities are versatile in the ways they address these challenges and obstacles. Research reveals a wide array of strategies developed to better the opportunities of community ‘members’. One important strategy, which engages with the key issue of educational inequalities troubling many ethnic minority children, is the bottom-up organization of supplementary or weekend schools after the hours of mainstream/traditional schools or at the weekends (Steenwegen, et al. 2022). To many minoritized individuals and families, these schools are a key element in the search for maximal educational opportunities for their children. Supplementary schools have become very popular: around 20% of minoritized youth in the UK (Maylor et al., 2013) and as many as 45% in Flanders participate therein at some point (ongoing research author).

Crucially, these schools are often set up and managed by volunteers, and teachers are often parents or other (unpaid) community members, providing classes in support of pupils’ academic success, to teach heritage languages, and to nurture a sense of pride (Burman & Miles, 2018; Lan Curdt-Christiansen & Hancock, 2014; Lytra & Martin, 2010). Research up until now has mainly focused on the role these schools play in the lives of the pupils. However another main reason for the continuing importance of these schools is that they seem to have a much wider scope than ‘just’ focusing on youth. Given the schools’ inherently collective character, as set up by ethnic community members themselves, their role as a potential community force is central to the current paper.

We aim to understand what role these schools play for other community members, and as such potentially for the community as a collective. Our leading general research question is: what resources are made available in the supplementary school and how are these resources used by community members? We unpack how supplementary schools, while often starting from a pupil-centered approach, expand their scope to provide support to the ‘whole community’. Supplementary schools seem to function as spaces where valuable resources become accessible to a wide network of ‘community members’(Kim & Zhou, 2006; Lee & Zhou, 2017).

Therefore, we analyze the types of resources emerging in these spaces, building on the frameworks of Funds of Knowledge (Rios-Aguilar et al., 2011) and Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005). Through their work, these scholars have critiqued the persistent perception of ‘minority capital’ as deficient and the lack of recognition of power differences impacting minoritized communities (Valenzuela, 2005). In response, these frameworks offer non-traditional lenses to recognize and reveal the resources present in supplementary schools, and how these are strategically applied.

Sharing resources also implies creating relationships between people, and in the context of our research the notions of bonding and bridging relations are relevant. The former refers to relations between ingroup members (such a group can be based on various identity or other dimensions e.g., ethnicity, language, social class, but also participation in specific organizations), while bridging relations are ties with so-called outgroup members. We build on studies showing that supplementary schools give access to resources to both middle-class and working-class families, thus broadening the reach of community cultural wealth and enabling (upward) mobility for a larger group of community members (Kim & Zhou, 2006; Lu, 2013).

This paper presents the results of the dialogic co-creation of the educational needs assessment of refugee and migrant children in Spain conducted under the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research project REFUGE-ED: Effective Practices in Education, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for the integration of Refugee Children. REFUGE-ED carries out 3 multisite pilot actions across 6 European countries, developing a first phase that consists of a dialogic co-creation and consultation with end-users (children, families, communities, teachers, practitioners) and stakeholders (NGOs, policymakers) to identify needs and how these can be successfully met by for piloting evidence-based practices. This paper presents the educational needs of refugee and migrant children identified in 6 Primary Spanish schools and the dialogic co-creation process that has allowed the engagement of all actors.

Data from January-September 2021 shows that more than 23% of refugees and migrants hosted by European countries in reception centers or other accommodation arrangements were children (UNICEF, 2022). Since the start of the war in Ukraine, two million refugee children have fled the country. According to Save the Children (2022), a child from Ukraine has become a refugee every single second of the war. The UNHCR estimates that the average period that refugee people spend in exile is approximately 20 years (SIRIUS, 2015).

Recent available data regarding the schooling of forcibly displaced children presents a disturbing situation. According to worldwide data from the UNHCR, 37% of primary school-age and 76% of secondary education age refugee children are out of school. Further, only 3% of refugees attend university compared to 37% globally (UNHCR, 2019). There is limited official data regarding schooling in different parts of Europe due to the complexity of the phenomenon.

Since 2013 the EU has granted children of asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors' access to the education systems of the member states in similar conditions as the nationals of the respective countries, with the Directive 2013/33/EU, or the Council Directive 2011/95/EU concerning minors who have refugee or subsidiary protection status. In Europe, despite the legislation regarding the right to education for all children, there are demographic, psychological, economic, legal and sociological constraints that prevent the materialization of this right, particularly affecting children from refugee families (Essomba, 2017).

The barriers to education faced by refugee children are multifaceted, interlinked and complex and, according to UNESCO, can be summarized into three categories: household (actual capacities to afford education, how relevant they consider it to be, and how accessible education is for them), systemic (characteristics of the education system that can prevent migrant/refugee/asylum- seeking children from receiving a quality provision) and functional (how the system works for these children and what outcomes they get from it) (UNESCO, 2019). The Joint Working Group seminar on the integration of migrants points out some of the most important challenges faced by policymakers and practitioners in the integration of newly arrived migrants and refugees in the educational system: (1) the need to coordinate different levels of government, types of actors and policy areas; (2) the insufficient training for educators in the skills and competencies needed for the integration of newly-arrived migrants (e.g. to deal with diversity, mental health and psychosocial problems and language barriers); (3) the difficulties in assessing and recognizing the prior learning of migrants as well as of giving an adequate response to previous educational deficits; and, (4) the need to tailor general approaches to individual cases and specific needs, and to engage with the groups furthest away from education and employment (European Commission, 2017).

We present findings from a pilot project aimed at creating community-based opportunities for one-to-one tutoring in STEM subjects, in the aftermath of the global pandemic. Based in a post-industrial Scottish village, the project resides in a local church hall, with tutoring undertaken by volunteers. This is participatory action research (Chevalier & Buckles, 2013), purposed towards understanding how a sustainable and community-based STEM tutoring model might be developed, with potential for instigating similar projects in local communities.

Background

Research across Europe has established a link between school closure and the exacerbation of existing inequality in school outcomes (Blaskó, Costa, & Schnepf, 2022). In some nation contexts, e.g. Germany (Freundl, Lergetporer & Zierow, 2021) and England (Major & May, 2020), national tutoring programmes are intended to offer redress, with low levels of translation into practice. In some contexts, e.g. Serbia (Kubíček, 2020), the capacity for tutoring may have reduced for excluded groups. Emerging research suggests that teachers prefer having input around how any additional tutoring resource is allocated (Nelson, Lynch & Sharp, 2021) and highlights the importance of schools’ relationship with tutoring projects (EEF, 2022).

We note that in the European context, research into tutoring of school pupils mostly focuses on the negative impact on schools when affluent families purchase private tutoring (e.g. Bray, 2011, Hajar, 2020) also known as ‘shadow education’. In contrast, our project seeks to increase community capacity for volunteer tutoring that might strengthen a school’s educational endeavours, with the aim of benefiting the STEM learning of children from excluded groups. Pivotal to our approach is the role of a volunteer who liaises between the school, the tutee’s family, the tutees and their volunteer tutors.

This participatory action research was undertaken over two phases, in a six month period. The first phase investigated development of tutees’ STEM identity i.e. the extent to which they saw STEM as something they could enjoy, be good at and have a career in (Kim, Sinatra & Seyranian, 2018). We explored this through administering brief surveys at the end of each tutoring session, and a series of informal interviews with both tutor and tutee present. We anticipated that the potential for the children to feel at home with STEM might rest upon tutoring experiences where their identity was nurtured (Talafian et al., 2019), implying a significant role for the tutor. The second phase of the pilot therefore, additionally, focused upon the relationship between the tutor and tutee with an accompanying translation towards ethnographic research methods.

We acknowledged that the theorising of the teacher student relationship is often conceptualised in idealised terms (e.g. Todd, 2014; Hoveid & Finne, 2014), perhaps underplaying the challenges posed where young people are experiencing adversity in life or education and where trust and hope may be fragile. In response, our project incorporated two strands of conceptual influence. Firstly, recent Scottish Government interest in ‘trauma informed approaches’ to engagement with excluded groups (Scottish Government, 2022) led to initial training being offered to the project’s volunteer tutors. Secondly, we were influenced by Biesta’s (2015) conceptualisation of education as inherently weak in terms of predictability of outcomes and where risk-taking is unavoidable. In this vein, we revisited Buber’s (2020) I and thou, as an inspirational tool for reflection upon ethnographic data gathered in the second phase of the pilot.

Our research questions are:

What are the significant factors in creating a sustainable community-based volunteer STEM tutoring programme for care experienced children?

How does tutoring affect tutees’ STEM identities?

What is significant about the character of the relationship between tutor and tutee?

How might volunteer tutors be prepared and supported for the tutoring role?

Population movements and migrations, which are increasingly prevalent worldwide, have led to classrooms becoming multicultural environments, with children from diverse languages, religions, ethnicities, and social classes (Chou et al., 2018; OECD, 2011). This societal transformation also impacts schools and places new expectations and responsibilities on teachers. Consequently, one of the crucial qualities expected of teachers in today's world is their ability to create a culturally responsive teaching (CRT) environment (Aguirre et al., 2013). However, there is a growing gap between the lack of preparation and training of current teachers in CRT and the increasing need for qualified teachers in this area (Acquah et al., 2016; Hollie, 2018). This highlights the necessity for teachers who possess effective teaching strategies to meet the diverse needs of students while demonstrating cultural and linguistic awareness (Grossman et al., 2005; Sowder, 2007; Zembylas, 2010). It is crucial for teacher training programs to systematically prepare pre-service teachers about CRT and provide them with ample experiences in this area (Hollie, 2018). Creating opportunities for teachers to gain a better understanding of their students' life experiences allows them to leverage this knowledge and incorporate it into their instructional designs (Hedges, 2015). One effective tool for achieving this is the use of community walks. Community walks, as defined by Turner et al. (2015), involve one or more visits to the community surrounding the school to gather information about the local environment, identify problems, and to investigate community-related issues. Being immersed in such environments allows pre-service teachers to gather information about the community-based activities of their students (Turner et al., 2015). It also enables them to acquire knowledge about the activities and practices that may be relevant to teaching mathematics within these environments, thereby enhancing their understanding of the communities they engage with (Goodwin, 2011). Moreover, community walks provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to expand their perspective and comprehension of their students' abilities by gaining insights into how mathematics is perceived and utilized by students at home and beyond the school setting (Turner et al., 2015). Additionally, participating in community walks helps pre-service teachers rectify any misconceptions they may hold about the community (Gay, 2002). During the process of developing a lesson plan based on insights gained from the community walk, pre-service teachers prioritize incorporating their students' perspectives and establishing connections with their experiences outside of school (Gay, 2010). From this standpoint, exploring the use of community walks as a tool to enhance pre-service teachers' understanding of the cultural elements that influence students' learning in mathematics lessons is believed to make a valuable contribution to the existing literature.

In this context, the primary objective of the current study is to examine the impact of community walks on the process of pre-service mathematics teachers' designing and implementing culturally responsive mathematics lessons. Additionally, the study aims to determine how the experiences gained from community walks influence the perspectives of pre-service teachers towards creating a culturally responsive environment in mathematics education.

To address these objectives, the following research question will be explored:

How did pre-service teachers benefit from their community walk experiences in the process of designing and implementing culturally responsive mathematics lessons?

Many European educational systems are still facing the issue of a large number of mathematically illiterate students (Schleicher, 2019). Policy makers, researchers, and educators are working hard on improving mathematics education and its outcomes, being that students’ educational and career paths often depend on their success in mathematics (Douglas & Attewell, 2017) and that mathematics is essential part of scientific and technological progress (Hanushek, 2013). In that endeavor some lines of research, as the current study, focus on a part of mathematics education that takes place at students’ homes and looks into the quantity or quality parental involvement in learning and the home learning environments (Dimosthenous et al., 2022). This study aims to investigate how different parental approaches to supporting their children in learning mathematics impact elementary students’ mathematics identity and performance.
Looking into parental involvement in mathematics education with a lens of parental motivational practices, authors distinguish between process-oriented and performance-oriented practices (Pomeranz et al., 2005; Gottfried et al., 2009; Moorman and Pomeranz, 2010). Parents who use process-oriented practices tend to put emphasis on value and utility of mathematics, developing their children curiosity, persistence, autonomy, and interest in mathematics. Those relying on performance-oriented practices insist on high achievement, often control their children’s schoolwork by external rewards and interfere with the learning process (Gottfried et al., 2009; Moorman and Pomeranz, 2010).
Drawing from currently the most influential theories of academic motivation, authors consider the set of strategies included in process-oriented practices to be more beneficial for a child’s educational outcomes than the ones included in performance-oriented practices (Pomeranz et al., 2005; Gottfried et al., 2009; Moorman and Pomeranz, 2010; Eccles & Wigfield, 2020). Empirical evidence show that process-oriented practices are linked with higher performance (Levpuscek & Zupancic, 2009), but also with the contributing factors such as intrinsic motivation (Gottfried et al., 1994; Gottfried et al., 2009), while performance-oriented strategies show connection with math anxiety (Macmull & Ashkenazi, 2019), lower achievement and a lower probability of opting for a STEM major in college (Levpuscek & Zupancic, 2009).
One important contributing factor to mathematics achievement, and at the same time - an outcome of mathematics education is students’ mathematics identity. Studying mathematics low performance from the perspective of mathematics identity enables researchers to consider a lack of sense of belonging within the mathematics classroom as a cause, instead of focusing on the lack of ability (Darragh, 2013). Mathematics identity refers to a person’s self-understanding in the domain of mathematics that is to a great extent influenced by the perception of how significant others see that person in the context of doing mathematics (Martin, 2009). The way parents approach learning mathematics reflects directly and indirectly on their children mathematics identity, but also a student’s relationship with mathematics might define the parental approach and the nature of their involvement (Kafoussi et al., 2020; Cunningham, 2021; Ingram & Meaney, 2022).

The goal of the current study is to understand the home learning diversities and their value in creating different pathways in mathematics education. Being that chosen parental strategies impacts mathematics achievement, by affecting its supporting elements, one possibly being mathematics identity, identification of beneficial strategies is an important input for policy measures and intervention programs. Thus, the study was guided by following research questions. What patterns of motivational practices utilized by Serbian parents when doing mathematics activities with their children can be distinguished? How are different patterns of motivational practices related to students’ mathematics performance? How are different patterns of parental motivational practices related to students’ mathematics identity?

This study is set in the North/NorthWest region of Ireland which, under the European NUTS classification framework, is considered to be a transition region (where GDP per capita falls between 75 and 90 percent of the EU average) (EuroStat, 2021). This region has experienced significant population growth moving from 650,000 in 2020 to 903,000 in 2022. Since 2017, the same region has experienced an increase in the prevalence of poverty and social exclusion rising from 2.9% in 2017 to 4.9% in 2020, above the rest of the country (EuroStat, 2023). Young people from such marginalised rural settings across Europe experience significant disadvantage compared to their urban counterparts when it comes to opportunities to enter the workforce (Flynn et, al., 2022; Erdogan et al., 2021; Mujčinović et al., 2021) ultimately reinforcing existing perspectives on the relevance of education. In Ireland, measures to address the impact of poverty and social exclusion are responding to the European Smart Specialisation Platform, which aims to boost employment across Europe in areas that require a diverse set of skills, that move the population beyond the dominance of agriculture. In the North/Northwest, this means being part of a strategic move towards a knowledge economy where the second level subject of science has a key role to play. The relationship between education and diversity for prosperity in marginalised rural communities couldn’t be clearer.

As part of a broader project to explore how science education, an ever-increasing requirement for progression to employment in the Irish economy, could be enhanced in marginalised second level schools, the project team uncovered a disproportionate participation rate across gender in upper secondary school science education at a national level. It was found that males were participating at a ratio of approximately 1:2 ( male: female), half the numbers of their female peers (SEC, 2020). While work has been done to promote opportunities in Science in the 12-18 year age group, it is evident that many male students from rural areas, such as the North/NorthWest region, continue to struggle to see the study of science subjects such as Biology as being relevant to their lives. Hence, considering their future entry to the workforce in growth areas under the S3 framework, disengagement with Science as a subject leads to immediate disadvantage and an increased risk of poverty and social deprivation in a region that is already disadvantaged.

Considering the idea of Science Capital, or a student’s view of the relevance of science to their identity and life aspirations (Archer et al., 2015), lived experience such as community/school engagement and socialisation within the familial setting, can play a role in limiting the aspirations that any student might hold (Bourdieu, 2018). Thus, important considerations regarding the teaching of science in regions such as the North/NorthWest of Ireland emerge. Bourdieu (2018) suggests that the totality of the environment which somebody inhabits directly influences the development of an individual and their orientation to the world around them. In the case of prospective upper second level male biology students in the North/NorthWest region, this may hold true as there appears to be a tension between the students perception of the relevance of science to their career trajectory, and the future career opportunities under a national alignment with the EU Smart Specialisation Platform.

The work reported on here seeks to unpick the influence of familial socialisation in relation to the perception of science, as part of a broader social ecosystem, as it relates to future opportunities for male secondary school students within a marginalised European transition region - the North/NorthWest of Ireland.

This paper addresses one of the most representative situation of educational systems: School transitions of students from one level to another and specifically, the transition from primary to secondary school, this being considered a significant milestone into school, personal and social trajectory of students (Calvo-Salvador y Manteca-Cayón, 2016).

In Spain, Antúnez (2007) and Monarca et al., (2013) argue that the transition to Secondary School supposes a strong cultural discontinuity, derived from the evolution of the educational system that has generate diverse purposes and demands, differentiated pedagogical methods and relationships, others than in primary school level.

Internationally, school transition have been a a persistent area of interest. Differrent studies advance knowledge on the complex factors and dimensions that shape the processes of transition to secondary school, such as: psychological (social, emotional and personality development, well-being, identity and self-esteem of students); sociological (social class, gender, minority groups, race, ethnicity and place of birth), curricular or organizational (knowledge management, pedagogical leadership, organization of times and spaces) and political (inclusive educational policies for social justice) ( Hargreaves, 1996; Evangelou et al., 2008; West et al., 2008; Jindal-Snape, et al., 2020) with a strong emphasis on supporting a successful transition from primary to secondary for all students.

One of the most important factors is the role of teachers and school professionals involved in transition processes (Azorín-Abellán, 2019). However, as reported by Hopwood et al. (2016) and Gro Marte Strand (2020) there are fewer studies that provides firsthand accounts and examine in close detail the daily practices of teachers and school professionals during the transition process, their role and involvement in pedagogical aspects such as: curriculum, teaching-learning methodologies, evaluation, relationships with pupils, school environment or specific programs to support transition.

In this paper, we briefly report the initial findings from an on-going research project known as: “Transition to Secondary Education. Pedagogical impact and consequences. (TESO.ICP). The project started in 2019 and it is funded by the Ministry of Science of Spain. The research project is carried out in several primary and secondary schools located in Andalusia (Spain) with the joint participation of teachers, school professionals, students, families, and researchers from University of Malaga (Spain).

Our project aims to study the processes of the transition from primary to secondary school to better understand the educational practice, the underline reasons of it, and how a whole culture is generated or built around certain beliefs, rites, and values of school activity. Both in Spain and elsewhere, the education systems are immersed in great social changes (gender culture, cultural and ethnic diversity, globalization, social networks, and knowledge society), that generate new approaches, and educational practices that seek equitable models to ensure the right to quality education for all students. Therefore, if we really want to find solutions to this problematic situation, this moment of transition is of such importance that it requires new insights and possible solutions to the necessary coordination effort of all the elements involved in education (Hargreaves, 1990). That is why it is unavoidable to return to a problem that continues to raise the concern of the educational community and society in a context of increased complexity and uncertainty to advance research and possible suggestions for improvement.

Specifically, in this paper we explore how teachers and school professionals are perceiving and experiencing the transition practices to secondary school, the situations in which the practices are carried out, and what kind of challenges and solutions do they propose to foster a positive transition experience to their students and families.

Traditionally, educational careers can be conceptualized as sequences of transitions and episodes. Many studies have focused entirely on students’ transitions at certain ‘branching points’ in the educational system (Baumert, Maaz, & Trautwein, 2009; Breen & Jonsson 2000; Mare, 1980). These studies assumed that a student’s final educational attainment level resulted from a linear sequence of educational transitions. However, as educational systems have become more open and flexible, educational careers may be less fixed than previous research suggested. Consequently, a growing number of studies are investigating educational track mobility and its impact on educational inequality (Backes & Hadjar, 2017; Jacob & Tieben, 2009). Blossfeld et al. (2016) conducted a cross-national study analysing how secondary school systems influence students’ educational trajectories in 17 countries. They found that mobility between educational tracks, while uncommon, was an important component of a non-standard educational career.

Like those in some European countries, the upper secondary school system in Taiwan is characterized by its differentiated features. After completing the 9-year compulsory education, students make their transition to senior secondary school, which is composed of different tracks. Many countries with differentiated school systems, including Taiwan, have implemented educational reforms that have opened up educational systems and provide flexibilities for track mobility. Track mobility has therefore regarded as an opportunity to adjust initial track placement and to soften educational boundaries between school tracks (Bellenberg, 2012; Winkler, 2020). However, little empirical research has explored the phenomenon of track mobility, including its main predictors, in Taiwan. It is important to bridge this research gap.

Studies conducted primarily in Europe have produced three key findings. First, mobility between educational tracks is relatively limited. Second, downward mobility is more common than upward mobility; specifically, students are more likely to move from more to less academically demanding educational tracks than from less to more academically demanding education tracks. Third, track mobility can be predicted by both school achievement and social background, which suggests that it mirrors the initial track placement. Accordingly, through corrective measures taken in the context of educational careers to change tracks, the distinct features of differentiated school systems have been consolidated (Backes & Hadjar, 2017; Blossfeld et al., 2016; Ditton, 2013; Stubbe, 2009).

In differentiated school systems, track mobility is often framed as a measure to correct mistakes in students’ initial track placements. Thus, students’ satisfaction with track placement could be an important predictor of track mobility. Such issue is particularly important in this study, since track placement in Taiwan is mainly determined by nationwide examinations. Consequently, students may not be placed in their preferred educational track and thus could be motived to change their educational tracks. Therefore, this study attempts to extend previous studies to take students’ motivation into consideration. Several empirical studies based on the self-determination theory (SDT) of Ryan & Deci (2017) have confirmed autonomous motivation in choosing an educational programme positively predicts retention intention (Girelli et al, 2018; Jeno et al., 2021). Accordingly, this study will analyse the impact of autonomous motivation in initial track placements on track mobility by using longitudinal survey data.

The main objectives of this study are as follows:

(i) Uncover trends in track mobility among senior secondary school students in Taiwan.

(ii) Investigate the influence of academic performance and autonomous motivation in initial track placements on track mobility.

The question of the popularity and effectiveness of institutions run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as compared to public institutions is a matter of considerable debate throughout the world. The effectiveness of schools operated by NGOs, such as churches, religious organizations and foundations, is often explained by the fact that these institutions select and attract higher- status children, who were given better home education (Gibbons et al., 2006), and that school staff develop closer relationships with parents, creating a sense of community around the school (Coleman et al., 1987; Morris, 2010). As might be expected, the quality ranking of the public and the private sector varies from country to country or even from region to region, depending, among other things, on the traditions of the education system, the division of tasks, the regional and local social environment, and the social status of religious parents.

Families have a great influence on students' educational achievement and the greatest challenge for the education system is to compensate for the resulting disadvantages. The education policy aimed at reducing social inequalities in the school system emphasizes the importance of parental involvement in the children's academic life and education (Epstein, 2010). For this reason, research has been carried out on different ways of parental involvement and its impact on academic performance (Hamlin et al., 2016). Overseas research suggests that the institutional sector can have an impact on the attitude of schools towards parents. In the cross-sector research of parental involvement, the church sector, as the second-largest school provider in America, has received special attention (Hamlin et al., 2016). In the case of religious institutions, it can be assumed that choosing a school based on the parent-school value similarity promotes parental involvement (Coleman et al., 1987). Investigating ways of creating opportunities, early research on church-run schools pointed out specific patterns of engagement with parents (Greeley, 1982; Coleman et al., 1982, 1987; Morgan et al., 1999). Studies have shown that involving parents of low-status students in school activities created a community around the school, which greatly facilitates the cooperation between teachers and parents for the sake of academic success and in order to mitigate the risks that hinder progress (truancy, indiscipline, etc.). Little research was carried out on the details and methods of maintaining relationship with parents, or on how this is perceived by individual actors. In the past, traditional framing of parental involvement dominated, envisioning parents as supporters of school fundraising initiatives and events (Hamlin et al., 2016). Epstein (2010) extended previous models of parental involvement by developing a framework of six major types of involvement. The dimensions of parenting, communication, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community have contributed greatly to the advancement of research on parental involvement, as it draws attention to the role of teachers and schools. According to Epstein's approach, the phenomenon receives relatively little attention in schools maintained by NGOs. In a systematic literature review forthcoming in the International Journal of Educational Development, we have presented that not all of Epstein's dimensions are fully implemented in schools run by NGO, however, significant differences can be observed between education systems.

Our analysis, based on Epstein's typology, investigated whether we can speak of a different relationship with parents in NGO-run compared to that in the public sector. Our hypothesis was that we would find a special parent-school partnership in NGO-run schools, different from that in the public sector.

Investigating educational inequalities and reveal their underlying origins is crucial, because educational inequalities can be responsible for social inequalities. Comparative studies like PISA show that the extent of educational inequalities varies significantly across countries. Schlicht et al. (2010) use the PISA data from 2006 to show that inequality is unlike distributed in Europe. Furthermore, they conclude that various mechanisms for that inequality interfere with each other.

One important factor that can reinforce or even create educational inequalities is parental school choice. However, especially the choice of private schools seems to be of vital importance in modeling inequalities. More opportunities for school choice and the rise of private schools follow an increasing marketization on the educational level characterized by more competition between schools, a growing number of school profiles, and more choice options for parents (Heinrich et al. 2011). Factors such as sponsorship of the school (private/state) shape attitudes and tend to reinforce educational inequalities through school choice (Parade & Heinzel 2020).

A central role within the school choice process is played by parents, who make decisions for or against a school, based on the information available to them. Schwarz et al. (2017) show that parents primarily rely on recommendations from acquaintances, information from school homepages, and school visits when choosing an elementary school. In addition, other information and experiences shape parental school choice decisions, such as their own school biographies (Mayer 2019) or images about the school system disseminated by the mass media (Fields 2006).

However, it remains still unclear what conclusions parents draw from this information and what attitudes parents have or what perceptions they have about state and private schools. In many countries, the private school rate is increasing (West & Nikolai 2016), which indicates a particularly positive perception and also a demand of private schools in general. But there are no findings so far on how much and what exactly is valued so positively about private schools by the parents. Moreover, it is not clear to what extent these parental assessments correspond to the reliable findings and whether parents judge their school choice decision on valid information at all. According to the market logic of school choice, detailed and valid information should be available to all stakeholders if the positive effects of school competition are to be achieved, e. g. high academic performance (Bellmann 2008, Le Grand & Barlett 1993). So far, it can rather be assumed that objective or factual sources of information are not used, because sources such as official statistics or information from school boards are rarely consulted (Schwarz et al. 2017). Instead, parents ground their decision primarily on personal recommendations (Lareau 2014).

Due to the fact that specific factors for the different country-related regulations and mechanisms are hard to compare, this article highlights one aspect of the generation of educational inequalities (school choice and especially parental assumptions about private schools) and discusses it on the example of one specific country (Germany). Using the example of only one country and its specific conditions that apply, we will show what kind of assumptions and prejudices parents have on the choice of private (vs state) schools and how these phenomena correspond to evidence from research and statistics.

Social diversity in the 21st century is reflected in the diversity of families, including the social, economic, and societal resources (Bourdieu, 1992) available to them to educate and support their children. Internationally, it is well documented that the family is the earliest and most important educational setting for children and that the resources available play a central role in school success (Edelmann, 2018; Sylva et al., 2010). The family also has an impact on how children manage the transition from home to school and on their further educational pathways (Corsaro, 1996; Grasshoff et al., 2013; OECD, 2017).

Even though the right to equal educational opportunities is enshrined in the Swiss Federal Constitution, family background and educational trajectories are in Switzerland particularly closely linked compared to other European countries. The goal of equal educational opportunities for all children is thus far from being achieved (Edelmann et al., 2019).

In Switzerland, the issue of school entry has received renewed attention in recent years, as children have recently been required to start school at an earlier age. They now enter compulsory schooling at the age of four, which is rather unique in Europe. The first two years are known as kindergarten. After the second year, children move on to primary school. Bringing the starting age forward increases the age and developmental diversity in the classrooms. As a result, social and educational debates have arisen around the assumption that not all children are ready for school (Edelmann & Schletti, 2020; Edelmann et al., 2018).

Contrary to international research (Lareau, 2011; Vincent & Ball, 2006), studies in Switzerland have mainly focused on how less privileged children and their families, often with a migration background, cope with transitions. Empirical findings on how socially privileged Swiss families cope with transitions are largely lacking (Edelmann, 2018; Edelmann et al., 2019). However, we recognise such findings as an important basis for fully understanding and appropriately addressing processes and contexts that generate unequal educational opportunities at the time of school enrolment.

Against this background, the three researchers, responsible for this presentation, have developed a qualitative longitudinal study (Corsaro, 1996; Lareau, 2011; Witzel, 2010), that is financially supported by the Bern University of Teacher Education. Over a period of five years (2019 to 2023), the study examines the experiences and perspectives of five socially privileged Swiss families during two transitions of their first-born children. Data collection began six months before the children started school and continued until after the transition to primary school two years later. The main question of this study is: How do socially privileged Swiss families manage and experience the transition of their first-born child during the first transitions into and within the education system?

In this study, educational pathways are referred to as transitions. This makes it clear that they are complex life events that take place over a longer period and affect not only the child entering school, but also the entire family (Dockett, 2015; Niesel & Griebel, 2013).

The presentation will focus on insights into how socially privileged Swiss families experience and cope with the first two transitions of their first-born children into the education system. It will also show how the family's quality of education stimulation, everyday coping and attitudes changed in the context of the two transitions. The longitudinal perspective makes it possible to identify changes and continuities over time, thus contributing to a deeper understanding of the family's coping with the transitions. Finally, the findings will be discussed in terms of their relevance for the design of the school entry phase as well as for the training of teachers and education policy.

Compared to other countries, Germany is considered to have a relatively small private school sector. At the primary level, the vast majority of students attend a public (governmental) school, whereas only four percent of the children are enrolled in a private (non-governmental administered) school (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2021). An important feature of Germany’s private schools is that they receive large public subsidies (Nikolai & Helbig, 2021). They have permission to additionally charge school fees but are legally obliged to stay potentially affordable for every family (Klemm et al., 2018).

Like in many other countries, private school attendance has increased during the last two decades (Nikolai & Koinzer, 2017). This increase is especially steep in East Germany and in urban areas (Koinzer & Mayer, 2015). The expansion of Germany’s private school sector is critically discussed among politicians and researchers. Some authors even argue that the actual school fees are often too high and that the legal precept of social accessibility is violated. According to these authors, private schools selectively attract children from families with a higher socio-economic status (SES) who utilize private schooling as a means of social distinction (Wrase & Helbig, 2016). Consequently, private schools are assumed to be one main driver of socio-economic segregation processes in the German school system (Nikolai & Helbig, 2021).

Indeed, several studies have shown that German private schools are selective with regard to the SES of their students (Klemm et al., 2018). However, to our knowledge, no study has directly addressed the research question of whether and to what extent private schools drive socioeconomic segregation processes in the German school system. The present study investigates this desideratum by analyzing socioeconomic segregation at the primary level, where private schools are often the only school-choice alternative to the public school the students are assigned to by default (Jähnen & Helbig, 2022).

The study is based on data from two large-scale educational studies conducted in 2016 and 2021. For each student, these datasets provide information on the HISEI value (Highest International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status) as a well-established measure of the family’s SES. The study reports the results of descriptive analyses on the average HISEI values of public and private primary school students and school-level intraclass coefficients (ICC) for the HISEI values as an indicator for socioeconomic segregation.

Consistent with other studies, the results of our descriptive analyses show that students from private schools have, on average, a higher SES than students from public schools (e. g. MD₂₀₂₁: 8.76 HISEI-points, p = 0.002). For urban areas and in East Germany, this difference is even higher (e. g., city-states: MD₂₀₂₁: 11.48 HISEI-points, p < 0.001; East German States: MD₂₀₂₁: 12.35 HISEI-points, p < 0.001). However, when examining the distribution of the school-level-averaged HISEI values across schools, we found that for public schools, the range of this distribution is exceptionally large and almost totally overlaps the distribution for private schools. In line with this, the estimated ICCs indicate that the socioeconomic segregation within the group of public schools (e. g. 2021: ICC_{public, within} = .182) exceeds the segregation between public and private schools (e. g. 2021: ICC_{public/private, between}= .081). Taken together, this result pattern suggests that private schools only seem to have a minor effect on the socioeconomic segregation of the whole school system (ICC_{public/private, within}= .186). However, divergent results were found for East Germany (but not for the city-states). In this subsample, the estimated ICCs indicate a considerably higher segregational effect of private schools on the school system (e. g. 2021: ICC_{public, within} = .120; ICC_{public/private, between} = .191; ICC_{public/private, within}= .130).

Leisure reading contributes to literacy, but Norwegian students read less than before. This paper present findings from interviews with students who are going against this trend. They read more than their classmates. Why do they do that? Research has pointed to a lack of reading motivation as the main reason why students choose not to read (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). If the school is to support students' leisure reading, strengthening their motivation should be central. Therefore, we investigate the type of motivation these most avid readers have, and what the motivation means for their reading habits. The purpose is to find out how the school can promote students' leisure reading in the best possible way. The theoretical starting point is Ryan & Deci’s (2017) distinction between autonomous and controlled motivation. Autonomous motivation is based on an experience of self-determination, while controlled motivation is induced by an internal or external pressure. Research has shown a positive connection between autonomous motivation and amount of reading (De Naeghel et al., 2012).When we conducted a survey among sixth graders at eight schools in the Oslo area, we were able to confirm this (Stavem & Skaar, accepted for publication). In this study, we continue to examine the motivation of the most avid readers. Teachers at the eight schools that had participated in the survey selected the girl and boy who read the most in their classes, and the students' parents gave their consent to individual, semi-structured interviews.

In this paper, I present results from a research project (period 2016-2022) about school-home collaboration in upper secondary schools. In the Norwegian school context, collaboration with students' parents has long traditions. The principle that schools, through their social mission, have an auxiliary role in relation to parents, was already formulated in the Almueskolelova [the Common People School Act] of 1848 (Vestre, 2012). At the time, the purpose clause stated: "It shall be the Almueskolen's purpose to support domestic upbringing...". The changes to the law up to today have largely followed similar thinking. Today, the law imposes the responsibility on school owners (municipalities, county councils and private school owners) to ensure systematic collaboration with parents (Education Act, 1998, § 13-3d); collaborative practices that include all students and their parents. This research project contributes to a comprehensive understanding of wholeness and coherence in practicing school-home collaboration at this level of schooling. In brief I share the results from three sub-studies, about practices, students’ needs, and jurisdiction, before I introduce a theoretical framework that is developed to meet and discuss these in conjunction. These results account for the complexity in practicing systematic school-home-collaboration and challenges schools to develop collaborative practices that include a diverse group of students and their parents.

The overall purpose of the project has been to theorize school-home cooperation as a pedagogical phenomenon in upper secondary school. This has been done by identifying various issues and by raising the following questions:

- How is school-home collaboration practiced in upper secondary schools?

- What are the students' need for school-home collaboration and how is the students positioned in this collaboration?

- How does the current legislation affect school-home collaboration in light of the students' need for this to happen?

One contribution from this project is the introduction of collaborative autonomy-support as a theoretical framework for developing collaborative practices to support the students. School-home collaboration, as part of the school's complex practices, involve topics such as the students' needs and agency, the role of the parents, the teachers' responsibilities, and the legal framework that regulate this. This research project draws on two overarching theoretical perspectives. Practice theory (the theory of practice architectures by Kemmis et al., 2014) is used to explain and analyse the collaboration as an educational practice, while theory of Nordic bildung (Doseth, 2011; Straume, 2013) and autonomy-support (self-determination theory by Ryan & Deci, 2017) are used to analyse the students' needs and positions in these collaborative efforts. This research project engages in a discourse that is relevant across national contexts – to collaborate with students’ parents – but it is site sensitive toward a Nordic education context.

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

This paper is part of the research project “The Empowerment of All Women through Adult Education for a Sustainable Development” (2021-2024) funded by the State Research Agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation in the framework of the research plan targeted at the challenges of society. The aim is to identify educational actions which are contributing to the empowerment of women in a situation of more vulnerability, providing evidence of the social impact on their life and their communities' development, and identifying those characteristics that make them replicable and transferable to other contexts. Specifically, this contribution responds to two of the project research questions:

1) What educational actions are empowering disadvantaged women and promoting their community development in rural and urban areas?

2) What characteristics make these actions replicable and transferable to other contexts?

Offering educational opportunities to all women -focusing on those who are most vulnerable because they do not have basic academic qualifications, belong to immigrant, or refugee groups, ethnic minorities, women living with disabilities, survivors of gender-based violence, women living in remote and rural areas, and women over 65 years old, is one of the requirements of SDG5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls for the UN Agenda 2030. Furthermore, it is also a driver for the successful development of their communities, influencing their empowerment, economic development, health improvement and civic participation, as stated by the 4th Global Report on Adult Learning and Education elaborated by UNESCO (2019). Although women's participation in community education is increasing worldwide, according to GRALE, they tend to participate less in professional development programs and the most vulnerable ones do not participate yet.

Spain was a pioneer in promoting community education for women from the end of the 19th century until the end of the Civil War in 1939. Some experiences were the Institución Libre de Enseñanza [Institution for educational freedom] in 1870 within the framework of what would be the first organization for that purpose, the Asociación para la Enseñanza de la Mujer [Association for Women's Education]. Another example is the education for worker women promoted by movements such as Free Women (Ackelsberg, 2005; Kaplan, 1971, 1982; Ruiz-Eugenio, 2011)

This tradition was taken up by the community education movement, which reorganized underground at the end of the 1960s during the last stage of Franco's dictatorship and with more strength from 1975 and the beginning of the democratic transition (Flecha, 2000; Giner, 2018; Oliver et al., 2016; Sanchez-Aroca, 1999), inspired by Paulo Freire's Theory of Dialogical Action (Freire, 1970a, 1970b). Within the framework of these educational initiatives, the "Other Women" movement was created by women participating in community education who did not have higher education degrees and were often left out of the feminist public debate led by academic white women (Beck-Gernsheim et al., 2003; de Botton et al., 2006)

The “other women's” movement has international connections in the network of more than 5,000 schools as learning communities that exist in 18 countries in Latin America and Europe, in which the authors are part of the research team that trains the educators who implement the educational actions that are carried out (ENLARGE Consortium, 2018; Natura Institute., 2019; SEAs4all Consortium, 2016; Step4Seas Consortium, 2017).

Introduction

Thailand has moved from a low-income society to an upper middle income country in a few decades and has become a key contributor to the economic growth of the Southeast Asian region. At the same time, Thailand has enacted major education reforms and invested a significant proportion of its national wealth into educating its youngest citizens. However, not all sections of society have benefited equally from this expansion. Half of Thai students in school are not acquiring the basic skills required for their own success and the country’s continued development. (OECD/UNESCO, 2016)

Thailand has embarked on an ambitious series of reforms towards addressing these challenges. However schools and teachers have not been given the support and skills they need to implement this new approach. The country lacks the capacity to ensure that its national tests reinforce the aims of the curriculum and support reform efforts rather than undermine them (OECD/UNESCO, 2016).

In the present Thai educational system is composed of two distinct strands which derive from the other countries. The first, pure abstract knowledge in various fields of thought which is derived from the Western tradition of liberal education, and the second, practical knowledge and technical skills relating to sciences and technology which emerged as a result of the recent industrial and technological revolutions. This system divides knowledge into various separate subjects and disciplines, thereby making it partial and fragmentary and it separates knowledge from real life, thereby making it abstract and irrelevant to living. Therefore Thai learners are not interested in education. This is the main cause that Thai educational standard fall down.

The country needs to develop Thai concept and strategy for education reform. that goes beyond the formal educational system, focusing on life centered, area based learning, and global knowledge applying. Hence community based education is an appropriate education concept in Thailand. In pursuit of the above definition of the issue, this paper will examine community based education efforts in Thailand to discern how they are best understood.

The main development policy of Sai Yoi Community is environmental development policy. Sai Yoi community focuses on reducing global warming. Community connects community development policies with global agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For this reason, the researcher choose this area to study. Because life skills and community based education is necessary to link the concept of individual education to a global level.

Research Question

The objectives of this research is to analyze key success factors of life-Skill and community-based education in Sai Yoi community, Phitsanulok Province.

Literature Review

1) Life-skill based learning (UNICEF, 2003; Learning Liftoff, 2018; Thoughtful Learning, 2018)

2) Community based learning (Melaville, Berg, and Blank, 2006; Howard, 2001)

Research design and methods

This research was divided into 9 steps:

1) select a location and gain approval from local education administrative officials and community’ leaders in Phitsanulok province, select a location 1 community include 440 representatives from school administrative staffs, teachers, students from 7 schools, community leaders, and the other stakeholders from 93 communities via questionnaires,

2) collect both secondary and field data by community survey, participatory and non-participatory observation, individual and group interviews of community’ leaders, etc. and share information with selected community,

3) synthesize and analyze that both of quantitative and qualitative data,

4) identify educational problems and opportunities to resolve them,

5) rank opportunities and develop life-skill and community based education plans,

6) adopt and implement the life-skill and community based education concept in selected community,

7) follow-up, evaluate and disseminate concept,

8) move the concept to broader society,

9) push the concept into national policy formulation.

Absence from school is a pressing issue in England at the present time, with almost 1 in 4 children persistently absent from school in Autumn 2021 (de Souza, 2022). Concerns related to school absence predate the Covid-19 pandemic and this phenomenon is linked to low attainment, antisocial behaviour and poor employment outcomes (de Souza, 2022). School absence has tended to be treated as a legal issue, e.g. school truancy (Reid 1999, 2002), or a psychological one, e.g. school refusal/phobia (DfE, 2018a); these discourses position the child and/or their family as the ‘problem’ (Grandison, 2011). However, multiple factors, including the school/education system, may contribute to school non-attendance (Cunningham et al. 2022). Some children report feeling let down by an education system that is not designed to meet their needs (Souza, 2022), and there is evidence that the de-regulated and marketized nature of the mainstream school system encourages schools to exclude students who may have a negative impact on exam results (Parsons, 2018; Partridge, 2020). Mainstream schools, therefore, may not be able or willing to educate and retain children with diverse needs.

Against this backdrop, this paper focuses on research into alternative provisions (APs): state or independently-run education settings catering for children and young people (CYP) outside of mainstream school (IFF et al, 2018). The AP sector caters for CYP more likely than their mainstream school peers to have special educational needs, mental health difficulties, anxiety, experience of bullying, experience of the care system and free school meal eligibility (DfE, 2018b). The latest annual AP census shows that the sector caters for approximately 35,600 pupils (GOV.UK, 2022), but this data does not include the estimated thousands more CYP attending providers which are not registered with the national school’s inspectorate (Thomson, 2022).

AP is an umbrella term that captures a diversity of provision. The focus of this research are small civil society APs being run by community, voluntary or third sector organisations. As peripheral organisations in an already marginal education sector, they have remained mostly outside central government’s drive to quality assure AP (Pennacchia & Thomson, 2018). Their positioning has brought a degree of institutional freedom enabling them to respond flexibly to the needs of students outside of mainstream school and thereby develop their own understandings of their value and quality. However, this positioning has shifted in recent years, with the government raising concerns about the safeguarding risks and low quality of such provisions (House of Commons, 2018). Whilst not seeking to diminishing these important concerns, the present research takes a different, and neglected focus by analysing what such provisions offer that supports some of the most vulnerable CYP to reengage in education.

This study draws on the Wenger-Trayners’ (2020) theorisation of ‘learning to make a difference’. We conceptualise small civil society APs as social learning spaces where staff members (i) try to ‘make the difference they care to make’; (ii) work in conditions of uncertainty; and (iii) pay close attention to how their work plays-out in practice. Through the social learning that occurs in APs, we argue that value is created which makes a difference to the learning and lives of vulnerable CYPs

The project asks the following research questions:

1. How are staff in small civil society APs learning to make a difference to the learning and lives of vulnerable CYP outside of mainstream school?
2. What value is being created in these APs?
3. Does/can the social learning and value creation in these APs help to inform policy and practice to support vulnerable CYP, prevent persistent school absence, and inform the development of an appropriate quality framework for these organisations?

Background. This paper draws on a capacity-building initiative preparing parents of nine selectively mute (SM) children to take the lead in their child’s change process, starting, gradually and in tiny steps, to speak in more situations and to more people, especially in school. A close home-school-cooperation and parents’ authority to negotiate with schools is urgent in SM cases. Aim and conceptual framework. The study investigates the possibilities and challenges in parents’ implementation of an authoritative parenting style (Baumrind, 1991; Snyder et al., 2013; Wentzel, 2002) in their interactions with the SM child. The innovation aims to strengthen parents’ capacity to promote social and emotional development in their child through the support of other parents in a parent guidance group, and from the researcher’s guidance. Methods. Egan’s problem-solving model (Egan, 2014) is used as a framework in the parent guidance group. Focus group-interviews in the parent group, and the parents’ written answers to questions arising from Egan’s skilled-helper model in between the meetings with parents form the data base of the project. Content analysis (Patton, 2002) is used to analyze the data. Common themes across families taking part are analyzed in NVivo (Richards, 2002). Results. A common theme among the families is how to find the right balance between supporting and challenging the SM child in communication with others. How to promote greater independence between children and parents is an urgent question from the project. Practical implications for parent-teacher-cooperation are highlighted.

Extended summary

Background

Early intervention and close cooperation with parents is crucial to prevent serious mental health problems in children with selective mutism (SM) (Omdal, 2008). Without any guidance from professionals with SM expertise, parents and professionals are potential risk factors for the child’s progress (Omdal, 2014). This paper considers the innovation process in a parent guidance group with nine SM families phasing-in an authoritative parenting style (Baumrind, 1991; Snyder et al., 2013; Wentzel, 2002) in interactions with their SM child.

Aim and conceptual framework

The SM child’s constant withdrawal from speech interferes with learning and social communication and gets more and more ingrained the longer it lasts (Omdal, 2007). Previous research suggests that SM parents tend to overprotect the SM child (Omdal, 2014; Omdal & Galloway, 2008). Thus, this group of children may have few coping experiences in the environment. We started a parent guidance group with nine families having a child with SM in 2017, holding six meetings where parents exchanged experiences and received guidance from the researcher. This study investigates the possibilities and challenges in parents’ implementation of an authoritative parenting style. Authoritative parents prevent over-dependency in interactions with their child (Baumrind, 1991; Snyder et al., 2013; Wentzel, 2002). Egan’s skilled-helper model (Egan, 2014) was used as a framework in the parent guidance. The model is organized in three steps: (1) the current picture; (2) the preferred picture; and (3) the way forward. Participants are encouraged to be active during the entire process of implementing goals, decisions, and actions towards a changed situation. Continuous evaluation throughout the process is necessary to reach valued outcomes. The study questions whether Egan’s skilled-helper model is adequate in phasing-in the principles of the innovation. Fullan (2016) emphasizes that a strong collective orientation strengthens participants’ motivation for change. Thus, an effective collaborative culture and common learning processes among parents and parents and teachers might increase capacity (Hargreaves et al., 2018; Leithwood, 2019).

This paper is part of a larger national study (PID2019-108775RB-C4) that aims to explore what we are missing in inclusive education. The paper understands inclusion as a common project based on social justice, democracy and the defence of social cohesion. However, it may be at risk for a variety of reasons. Often the concept of inclusion is used indiscriminately, polarising debates that pit professionals, families, the scientific community and the educational community against each other (Göranson and Nilholm, 2014; Norwich, 2008). In fact, there are normative regulations, studies and even legal claims that use inclusion to defend anti-inclusion solutions. Inclusive discourse runs the risks of being used to describe and legitimise exclusionary ways of doing things, what Slee (2018) describes as a misappropriation of inclusive education.

The fact that segregative and pseudo-inclusive practices persist in many countries and regions raises the question of the extent to which exclusionary attitudes, values and practices have been uncritically taken on board, when international and specifically European legislation advocates inclusion (Tawel, Emery, Daniels, Thompson & Porter, 2020). The frequent debate about whether or not any learner (no matter who or how they are labelled) has a right to be in inclusive education illustrates the weak penetration and understanding of the inclusive ideal in society and education.

Although many studies confirm the importance of the family-school relationship, the analysis of inclusion from the perspective of families is limited. Some studies developed in the European and international context have been warning for more than a decade of the persistent lack of recognition of the voices of parents in decisions about their children's schooling (De Boer, Pijl, and Minnaert, 2010). Other studies looks specifically at families' perceptions and attitudes towards inclusion and at families' preferred mode of schooling (Paseka, 2020; Duhaney and Salend, 2000; Merrigan, 2021). These studies show different results on the preferences of families of children in vulnerable situations for inclusive or segregated forms of schooling (whether in inclusive schools, special educational classrooms, or special education schools). Based on these results, in this study we intend to analyze which schooling model is preferred for a sample of Galician families of students identified as having Special Educational Needs and with different schooling experiences. I addition it is aimed to know, what reasons lead them to make this choice between different school emplacements.

Spanish educational legislation, although it declares itself to be inclusive, considers, as in other contexts, student diversity from a contradictory perspective by proposing segregating educational options as inclusive.

The work presented was developed in a specific region: the Autonomous Community of Galicia. According to the Galician Institute of Statistics, there are 1,254 educational schools in Galicia, with different types of ownership and providing education from nursery education to university studies. The provision of special settings is high: there are 36 special education schools in this community (with 1.111 students) while there are 41 special education classrooms in ordinary public schools attending to 337 students.

The procedure for the schooling of students with SEN is based on a psycho-pedagogical evaluation and subsequent schooling report, carried out by the school's guidance department and, in extraordinary cases, by a Specific Guidance Team. In this way, the procedure and decisions on the schooling of students are governed by exclusively technical criteria, limiting the voice of families in the report to a simple consultation without decision-making capacity.

Background

Inclusive Education (IE), as an international movement, has gained considerable momentum since the 1994 World Conference on Special Needs Education in Salamanca, Spain. While IE policy, research, and practice has burgeoned across the globe, experiences from rural settings in the Global South remain marginalised and undervalued (Sharma et al., 2017; Taneja-Johansson et al., 2021). This has arguably left the field of IE rather underdeveloped (Sharma et al., 2017). For instance, in India, where this research study occurred, over 65% of the population resides in rural settings, with most students (aged 11-14 years) enrolled in government-run schools (Annual Status of Education Report, 2021). Yet, a significant proportion of the literature focuses on examining IE within urban private school settings (Taneja-Johansson et al., 2021).

Consequently, as an attempt to develop a more contextualised understanding of IE at a rural government school in Uttarakhand, India, we drew on the multiple voices of students, parents, and teachers. By focusing on different perspectives within a disadvantaged school, we have been able to develop a more nuanced view of IE that could be beneficial for researchers and practitioners across national and regional contexts. Importantly, we have built on an earlier presented paper during the ECER 2021 conference which focused on student voices (see also, Rangarajan et al., 2022).

Theoretical Framework

This study is based on a strengths-based approach to research with marginalised individuals and communities (Hamby, 2021). In using the strengths-based approach, we focused on the existing knowledge, skills, and potential of the participants (Tsey, 2019) by trying to understand their current and future aspirations, aspects of schooling that they most valued, and the role that their social contexts played (Rangarajan et al., 2022). Importantly, we attempted to centre the perspectives, experiences, and values of the participants by relying on the capability approach (Nussbaum, 2011; Sen, 1999) and intersectionality (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1991) as a theoretical framework.

The capability approach potentially provides an ethical common ground to conceptualise and examine IE by focusing on the purpose of inclusion (Reindal, 2010; Terzi, 2014). The purpose of IE is to develop a range of capabilities of all learners that they and their communities value (Reindal, 2010; Terzi, 2014). Capabilities can be defined as not just skills and subjects that students learn at school, but also the opportunities and freedoms to convert resources into valued outcomes (Nussbaum, 2011).

However, disadvantages in the school context are created through the intersections or mutually constructing facets of social division, like age, class, race, gender, rurality, and dis/ability (Collins & Bilge, 2016). For example, in India, it has been ascertained that already marginalised groups of children, based on their caste, geographical location, gender, religious affiliation, disability, and socio-economic class, disproportionately experience low participation and exclusion from, and at, schools (Balagopalan, 2022). These intersecting social positions of learners shape not only their capacity to navigate but also to negotiate social structures and relationships within and outside the school boundaries (Collins & Bilge, 2016). Therefore, intersectionality is a useful tool to understand learners’ lived experiences of marginalisation through the examination of both interpersonal and larger structural power relations (Beŝić, 2020).

Research Questions

The following research questions guided our inquiry:

1. What are student (11-13 year olds), parent, and teacher perspectives on the most valued aspects of being in school and how shared are their views?
2. What are student (11-13 year olds), parent, and teacher perspectives on how and the extent to which valued aspects of being in school are promoted?

A commitment to inclusive education would not need to be justified simply because it is a human right.Moving forward with inclusion also enhances the movement towards meeting the mandate of international commitments (see Objective 4 of the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development). However, there is evidence to show that learning in schools where the diversity of students, including students with disabilities, is welcomed and embraced has a positive impact on all members of the educational community (all students, professionals and families), on the school as a whole, as well as on the local community in which it is located (Kefallinou, et al., 2020).

With regard to teachers, this positive impact is reflected in improvements in both their professional performance (e.g. in their teaching methodologies - Hehir, et al., 2016 - or the way they collaborate with other teachers – Drossel et al., 2019) and their personal well-being (e.g. personal satisfaction or perception of competence – Jordan et al., 2010).

Regarding students, the presence of, for example, students with disabilities does not interfere negatively with the academic performance of their peers and if there is any impact on them it is positive (Hehir, et al., 2016; Alnahdi, 2019; Cologon, 2019). With respect to students with disabilities, significant positive impacts are also found both academically and socially (Kefallinou, et al., 2020). Hehir et al. (2016) concluded that there is evidence that even educational settings can confer short and long-term benefits for all students.

For families, when inclusive education works, their perception of personal and family well-being is positively affected (Cologon, 2019) and this is related to their partnerships with schools and teachers (Simón et al., 2022).

However, it is questionable whether these benefits are shared by the different members of the educational community and, more specifically, by the families of peers or teachers. In fact, the educational community is often unaware of the benefits of embracing diversity (UNESCO, 2020). According to the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2022), for countries to move forward with the challenge of building increasingly inclusive environments, it is important to share a vision of what the meaning and sense of inclusion is. In this context, it is important to have evidence of the positive impact of inclusion, while recognising the different views on the subject (Dalgaard, et al., 2022; Gray et al., 2021).

Moreover, learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are commonly viewed as more challenging for an effective inclusive education than learners with other special educational needs (SEN) (Humphrey & Symes, 2013). For this reason, it is relevant to know the opinion of members of the educational community such as families or teachers in mainstream schools who, among others, teach students with ASD.

Therefore, the objectives of this study were a) to identify what benefits of inclusion are perceived by teachers and families at schools where students with ASD are enrolled, and b) to analyse the influence on this perception of variables related to the families (having children with and without SEN) or the teachers (age, experience and training).

In order to respond to these objectives, a mixed methodology was used. Families from different educational levels and teachers from 14 schools participated. To collect the information, a questionnaire on perceived benefits was used and in-depth interviews were carried out with teachers and families who have children with ASD.

The results show that both families and teachers identify benefits related to students with SEN, their peers and teachers. These results have relevant theoretical implications in the framework of analyses of the meaning and significance of inclusion as well as practical implications.

The first aim of the present study is to develop measurement tools that can be used to determine the functional and dysfunctional attitudes of parents toward the academic life of their high school students. The second aim of this study is to examine the mediating roles of conditional performance related to reward expectation and fear of being punished in the relationship between functional/dysfunctional parental attitudes and burnout due to parents.

Parental attitudes are one of the most important factors that leave traces of different dimensions and depths in the lives of individuals. There are studies in the literature that draw attention to the functional/non-functional effects of parental attitudes on children's academic lives (Erdoğdu, 2007; Gündüz & Özyürek, 2018; Güleç, 2020; Özyürek & Özkan, 2015). Among the dysfunctional consequences of parental attitudes, school burnout syndrome has special importance that should be emphasized.

School burnout is a syndrome experienced by students as a result of difficult and prolonged excessive demands associated with school (Aypay, 2011; Bask & Salmela-Aro, 2012). Especially in recent years, it has been reported that high school students are faced with an increasing burnout syndrome (Walburg, 2014). One of the main factors leading to school burnout syndrome, which may threaten students' psychological health and academic development, is parents' attitudes towards the academic context (excessive pressure, dissatisfaction with the effort made, and not appreciating the work, etc.) (Aypay, 2011, 2012).

The school burnout literature indicates that students' levels of reward addiction and punishment sensitivity in the academic context are variables that predict burnout syndrome. As the levels of reward addiction and sensitivity to punishment increase, the levels of school burnout also increase (Aypay, 2015, 2017, 2016c, 2018a, and b). In an academic context, reward addiction is defined as the situation in which students' moods and behaviors begin to be controlled by rewards (Aypay, 2016b); Sensitivity to punishment in an academic context is defined as a state of hypersensitivity arising from fear and anxiety to punishment and punishment stimuli, and the negative reactivity caused by this (Aypay, 2015). Research findings have shown that parenting styles are associated with reward addiction and sensitivity to punishment in the academic context (Aypay, 2016a; 2019).

In the studies summarized, the relations of these variables with each other were studied in macro dimensions. This study has tried to determine how these variables are related to each other at micro levels. For this purpose, parental attitudes, one of the variables of this study, were examined by reducing them to the academic context. “Burnout due to family”, is one of the dimensions of school burnout; “Conditional performance related to reward expectation”, is the most typical dimension of reward addiction in an academic context; “Fear of Punishment”, is the most typical dimension of sensitivity to punishment in the academic context, constitutes the other variables of this research.

Czech secondary school students are preparing for the final/exit exam, which in our case, is the Matura exam, during their study. Matura is considered important in the life span because it allows students to study at university or gives opportunity to find an appropriate job in the labour market. If an examinee does not pass the Matura exit exam, he/she officially completed only the primary level of education, regardless of the completed four years of study at secondary school. The purpose of this exit exam is evaluation of student's knowledge of the learned curriculum. The exit exam has two parts. The state guarantees the first common part, consisting of two exams: (1) Czech language and (2) second language or mathematics. The second part depends on the characteristics of the school and its programs. Thus, the Matura exam places demand on students and their learning because the exam is complex and comprehensive, and it has an essential meaning in the social context.

Secondary school education is often described as directed and influenced by teachers who test students. The tests are usually partial from the thematic unit (Seli et al., 2020). Students have many grades, showing how (un)prepared they were for the test. If they fail, they can better prepare for the new test, and their final grade can be fixed. This system does not work for the Matura exit exam. The grade from this exam is based on their one-try performance, and they cannot influence the grade in another way. This complex exam requires long-term, systematic, and independent preparation. In order to pass this exam, students must be aware of their goals and motivation, which is a process deeply connected with learning (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002; Schunk & Greene, 2018). Thus, two dimensions of the individual preparation process are distinguished. The first dimension focuses on motivation and motivational strategies (Ilishkina et al., 2022), and the second relates to self-regulated learning (Panadero & Alonso-Tapia, 2014; Zimmerman, 1990). Students have to self-regulate themselves to achieve the goal-passing the Matura exam. They can repeat the trial during the next school year if they do not pass it, but they officially lose institutional support.

Data from CERMAT show that in 2022, approximately 14% of students failed the exit exam. Consequently, there is a tendency to persist in failure despite repeated remedial attempts. For remedial attempts in 2022, the failure rate was 72%. Given the importance of students' preparation, this raises the question: how does the approach to preparation for the Matura exit exam change in the context of individual remedial attempts?

In this paper's framework, we use the forethought phase (where task analysis also plays one of the key roles), the performance phase and the self-reflection phase, as described by Zimmerman and Moylan (2009). These three phases can be observed in repeatedly failed examinees at each attempt when they try to pass the Matura exam. Attention is paid to the reflective phase towards failure, influencing the following preparation (Panadero, 2017). Therefore, this paper aims to describe the changes in individual and social aspects of self-regulated learning that occur while achieving the Matura exam.

This proposal introduces an innovative model with its teachers’ manual that has the form of a flexible guide which primarily and purposefully promotes Lipman’s “Philosophy for Children and Community” mindset as a state of mind for teachers-parents’ relationship enhancement aiming to transform the learners and their relationship itself as well as the school’s perspectives into a learning community/organization.

R.Q.: How plausible is it for the teachers & parents (and implicitly children) to transform school into a learning organization if they form a Community of Inquiry that constitutes a circuit where learning is an ongoing goal for all actors.

The conversational framework that it’s based on, is an invitation from the teachers/facilitators to the parents to build new ways of fostering relations that enable people with diverse cultural, academic, and even language backgrounds to voice and share their needs and experiential knowledge. It is an invitation to the community to open-up with ideas and tools with which they can prompt reason in a Democratic environment where every member has a right to questioning, reflecting thinking, dialogic reasoning, and metacognition as well as try to unite their thinking into a potentially operational consensus for action. As Socrates once said: “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think!”

The pedagogical framework of P4C constitutes a way that children can learn how to think, analyze, and argue—necessarily from an early age—because otherwise their inherent ability to think abstractly is lost. Abstract thinking brings them to Philosophy (in the dialogic sense not in the academic historical one), familiarizes them with discussion and critical thinking honing their reasoning skills as they increasingly engage in Socratic Dialogue (Lipman & Sharp, 1994) that is activated by a text, story, art etc. In addition, Lipman observes (2003), P4C is characterized by reflective, deliberative, communicative, and dialogic actions, which conclude in both reinforcing individual judgment and, at the same time, solidifying a diverse community. Specifically, disparate individuals (eg. in ideas, beliefs, socio-economic backgrounds) are given the chance to voice their ideas in a democratic, empathic, and respectful manner and co-construct a community that promotes trust and well-being, while building a Community of Philosophical Inquiry -CPI- (Lipman, 2009).

Furthermore, according to Mezirow (2012), activating Transformative Learning processes, through the agency of a disorienting dilemma—in this case posed by the stories as a trigger for parents’ critical reflection—creating space to question assumptions (Taylor, 2000), re-think, and perform in new, alternative, different ways whilst actively participating in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry that could potentially lead to instant (epochal) or gradual (incremental) transformation (Mezirow, 2000). It must be understood that such participation does not by any means lead to an inevitable transformation, but it can certainly create a friendly, trusting community where reflective dialogue is more than welcomed!

For the parent-teacher-school complex envisioned in the presented model (Teachers-Parents’ Community of Inquiry) to act and learn together as a unified entity, it is most likely helpful to conceptualize and structure it to operate as a unified learning organization—one that Watkins & Marsick argue, will require deep changes in the actors’ mindsets, and the culture of the organization—ones that occur only in a series of interrelated overlapping stages over time (1993, 1999). This is the process that Watkins &Marsick envision in their widely accepted Model, Dimensions of a Learning Organization. The potential seems real because if it is able to keep learning continually it could potentially transform itself, and its members as individuals, as a group, and, ultimately, as a coherent organization through the three interrelated stages that characterize its emergence in their Model of Dimensions of a Learning Organization (ibid,1998).

The inclusive education perspective of UNESCO’s Framework (Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all) has brought significant changes to educational policy and school management and organisation (Diem, Browning and Sampson, 2020). Research on teaching and learning practices in diverse classrooms is as important as ever. This symposium focusses on an implicitly diverse education context- schools with multigrade classrooms.

In an educational context where schools have been organised according to the principles of enterprise organisations, the tendency in educational systems has been to distribute the population from homogeneous criteria in order to work under criteria of homogeneity. Heterogenous classrooms only have been present when the conditions of depopulation of rural areas cannot organize a complete graduate school. In this context a general model of urban school has been shown as the ideal of school and classrooms with children of different ages have had a negative reputation. Research from different countries have shown this negative perspective attending to the teachers' voices (eg. Mulryan-Kyne, 2004).

European classrooms have become more diverse due to migration both within Europe and from non-European countries with this creating potentially new challenges and opportunities for teachers and teacher education. Multigrade classrooms are present in rural and urban areas. Inclusive teaching practices research become central arenas in this scenario for creating deepened understandings of education and inclusion in different countries and for considering local and global discussions. The main aim of this symposium is therefore to help to broaden knowledge and create a space for exchange, reflection and discussion about the status of teaching practices research in these respects in European countries. Connecting this is a challenge for educational research.

Previous studies have already highlighted the relevance of inclusive teaching practices in multigrade classrooms to deal with social justice and inclusion in conditions of European diversity (e.g. Bjøru, 2023, Mangione et al, 2022, Vigo and Soriano, 2014). This research has dealt with the challenges of globalization, migratory movements and inclusion and the implications and needs that these factors demand from future (and past) teacher professionals, teacher education and teacher education research and policy. They ask questions about how schools, universities and other institutions entrusted with teaching practices to respond to the European Union call to inclusive education, so that they can participate in and develop schools that respect different needs, cultures and lives, and contribute to social justice and inclusion aims (EC, 2017) and in line with this the Symposium has a twofold interest:

• To exchange research knowledge about teaching practices from multigrade schools, attending to inclusive education.
• To promote interest for future research about inclusive and creative teaching practices in rural and urban spaces in schools and hyper-diversity in European countries.

The symposium will include researchers from four European countries whose research has addressed initial teacher education in Higher Education. With a critical perspective as a common theme, the papers will cover issues dealing with different processes of inclusion and exclusion related to initial teacher education perspectives. These issues are of great relevance for European educational research, where markets and Inclusion are co-located. The symposium challenges contemporary initial teacher education and the preparation of teachers for working in diverse classrooms.

This paper draws together knowledge about teaching and learning in diverse classroom. It begins with mixed age classes where there are pupils of different ages or grades (see Cronin, 2019 for a discussion on terminologies). Where mixed age teaching is forced upon a school due to circumstances such as small pupil numbers, it can be seen as problematic. However, where mixed age classes are intentional, the perceived benefits to pupils, their families and wider communities are well documented (Cronin, 2019). There is an extensive literature about teaching and learning in mixed age settings that can be drawn together with knowledges of diversities more traditionally associated with equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) groupings such as ethnicity, socio-economic status and disability. Amalgamating these literatures offers opportunities for new theoretical engagements, potentially offering enrichment of the understandings of diversity in classrooms and informing development of pedagogies. Teaching and learning in diverse classrooms often draws on ideas about inclusive approaches, practices and organisation. Inclusive approaches to education are informed by a number of one or more theoretical positions. These include psycho-medical models, the celebration of individuals and their differences (eg the UN Sustainable development goals), children’s rights (eg Rustemeir, 2002) and the valuing of democratic and collaborative actions in schools and their communities (eg Fielding, 2011). The perspectives of those who extol the benefits of mixed age classes, tend to be informed by theoretical positions that value collective acts and community (Vincent, 1999; Little, 2001) and there are resonances here with ideas being used in democratic and collaborative approaches to inclusive teaching and learning. These include the need to recognise individual identity in the context of collaborative learning (Hargreaves, 2009), ideas of belonging (Slee, 2019) and The Common School (Fielding and Moss, 2011). The domination of individualism in contemporary education (Hargreaves, 1980), with its associated standardisation and decontextualization of pupils, curricula etc feeds into the development of inclusive teaching and learning which tend to focus on the acknowledgement of difference rather than similarity. However, there are bodies of theoretical work in the inclusion and mixed age literature associated with ideas of collaboration and collective acts - see for example the work of the Victoria Government in Australia (2017) and STEP4SEAS (2019) in Europe. This paper explores how theorising of mixed age and inclusive teaching and learning can be put to work in developing pedagogies and educators.

Cronin, Z. (2019) To mix or not to mix: A critical review of literature on mixed-age groups in primary schools . Cambridge Open-Review Educational Research e-Journal . 6 165–179 Department of Education. Victoria Government (2017) Purposeful collaboration, collective responsibility. Victorian government schools’ agreement 2017. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/teachingresources/practice/17-0129EBAGuideforteachers.pdf Fielding, M. (2011) Student voice and inclusive education: A radical democratic approach to intergenerational learning. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado. 70 (25.1) Fielding, M., & Moss, P. (2011). Radical education and the common school: A democratic alternative. London: Routledge. Hargreaves, D (1980) A Sociological Critique of Individualism in Education. British Journal of Educational Studies. 28(3) 187-198. Hargreaves, L. (2009). Respect and responsibility: Review of research on small rural schools in England. International Journal of Educational Research, 48(2), 117-128. Rustemeir, S. (2002) Social and educational justice: The human rights framework for inclusion. Bristol: Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education. Slee, R. (2019) Belonging in an age of exclusion, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(9), 909-922 STEP4SEAS (2019) Social transformation through educational policies based on successful educational actions https://www.step4seas.org/

Inclusion, new technologies and creative thinking (UNESCO, 2020) are benchmarks in education systems of Europe today. As Spanish schools have become more diverse due to immigration, both from within Europe and from non-European countries, the creation of multi-grade classes, although not always recognised by education authorities (Vigo et al., 2022), has increased and has challenged teaching practices, usually based on homogenisation. In a context characterised by the distribution of pupils in homogeneous age groups, teachers are faced with both a challenge and new opportunities (Ainscow, 2020; Rambers & Watkins, 2020). Regarding the use of technologies has been questioned (Gallagher & Barry Freeman, 2011; Sancho-Gil et al., 2020; Schnaider & Gu, 2022; van der Vlies, 2020). It makes little reference to the individuality and life of the students (Área et al., 2020; Sancho-Gil et al., 2020). Little research has been done on the use of digital media in multigrade classrooms (e.g. Vigo-Arrazola and Dieste-Gracia, 2019; Vigo, 2021). The aim of this paper is to present different examples of how teachers in multi-grade classrooms recognised by education authorities challenge the culture of homogenisation in teaching and manage inclusive and creative teaching practices with digital media. Based on the information gathered in the context of a PhD and a national R+D+i project entitled ‘Challenging stigmatisation. Discourses and creative and inclusive educational practices with digital media in "schools of special complexity" (PID2020-112880RB-I00) (Ministry of Science and Innovation)’, we use ethnographic analysis based on participant observation, interviews, informal conversations and documentary analysis in 2 schools of special complexity located in rural areas of Spain. Data analysis take as reference creative teaching and learning practices, from a historical-cultural and dialectical perspective, considering practices that are based on relevance and connection to the possibilities of the context (Beach and Dovemark, 2007; Troman and Jeffrey, 2007; Woods and Jeffrey, 1996). Results allow us to identify different teaching practices with digital media that have been adapted to the different levels of the students, favouring the participation of all. These practices are aimed at recognising the students' voices through free expression and the connection with their interests and lives. However, it is possible to see how the tendency to work from a homogeneous perspective is present. Finally, we highlight tensions, contradictions and opportunities of teaching practices (with digital media) in multigrade schools in a metro-normative system.

Ainscow, M. (2020). Inclusion and equity in education: Making sense of global challenges. Prospects, 49, 123–134. Beach, D. & Dovemark, M., (2007) Education and the commodity problem: Ethnographic investigations of creativity and performativity in Swedish schools. The Tufnell Press. Gallagher, K., & Freeman, B. (2011). Multi-site ethnography, hypermedia and the productive hazards of digital methods. Ethnography and Education, 6(3), 357-373. Ramberg, J., & Watkins, A. (2020). Exploring inclusive education across Europe. FIRE, 6(1), 85-101. Sancho-Gil, J.M., Rivera-Vargas, P., & Miño-Puigcercós, R. (2020). Moving beyond the predictable failure of Ed-Tech initiatives. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 61-75. Schnaider, K., & Gu, L. (2022). Potentials and Challenges in Students’ Meaning-Making via Sign Systems. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 6(2), 9. Troman, G., & Jeffrey, B. (2007). Qualitative Data Analysis in Cross-cultural Projects. Comparative Education, 43(4), 511–525. UNESCO (2020). Inclusion and education: All means all. Global monitoring report. Van der Vlies (2020). Digital strategies in education across OECD countries. OECD. Vigo-Arrazola, B., & Dieste-Gracia, B. (2019). Building virtual interaction spaces between family and school. Ethnography and Education, 14(2), 206-222. Woods, P., & Jeffrey, B. (1996). Teachable Moments. The Art of Teaching in Primary Schools. Open University Press.

International research has examined the challenges teachers have in meeting an increased range of needs across multiple grades/year levels within multigrade teaching; however, the practice of increased responsibilities continues to be widespread (e.g. Berry, 2006; Berry & Little, 2006; Erden, 2020; Grimes, 2019; Robiños et al., 2020). Due to many factors, including immigration, learning needs are reportedly increasing even in age-banded classes. Using Bourdieu’s theories (social, cultural, and economic capital) and evidence of experiences of New Zealand teachers, school principals and teacher educators, in this symposium, as a foil to prompt comparison through similarities and contrasts to European experiences to stimulate ideas for potential research, we will argue that the benefits of multigrade teaching provide children with invitations to learn (Tomlinson, 2002).Tomlinson’s invitations address five key needs “to make learning irresistible: affirmation, contribution, purpose, power and challenge” (p. 8). Affirmation is the need to feel needed and significant. Contribution is the need to contribute to the world with learners looking for a way to contribute to the classroom and school. Purpose is the need for learners to understand what they are doing and see the significance and relevance of the learning for themselves. Power entails the need for learners to feel that learning is useful and that they have agency and may assess quality of the outcomes of study, and challenge is the need for learners to study at an appropriate level for their current ability. These opportunities build relational knowledge and agency. Multilevel teaching supports schools in being safe places and in developing learner engagement, participation, and cooperation along with an understanding of learning, selves, and others (Earl Rinehart, 2020). Multigrade teaching also contributes to the vision societies have for what they want for their young people. In New Zealand the National Curriculum states that our Vision is for young people to be confident, connected, actively involved and lifelong learners (MoE, 2007, p. 8). In essence, multigrade teaching practices help young people learn to live together, one of the four pillars for education in the 21st century (Delors et al., 1996). Learning to live together is about awareness of similarities and interdependence of people, and respect and appreciation of diversity to be able to learn and work together towards reciprocal understanding and cohesion in societies.

Berry, C. & Little, A. W. (2006). Multigrade teaching in London, England. In A. W. Little (Ed), Education for all and multigrade teaching (67–86). Springer Delors, J., Al Mufti, I. A., Amagi, I., Carneiro, R., Chung, F., Geremek, B., Gorham, W., Kornhauser, A.,Manley, M., Padrón Quero, M., Savane, M., Singh, KK.,Stavenhagen, R., Myong W. S., & Zhou N.(1996). Learning, the treasure within: Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. Earl Rinehart, K. E. (2020). What do we mean by social in relation to learning and the role of teachers? Teachers and Curriculum, 20(1), 1–6. Erden, H. (2020). Teaching and Learning in Multi-graded Classrooms: Is it Sustainable?. International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 12, 359-378. Grimes, N. (2019). An Investigation of Teachers’ Perceptions of the Benefits of Multi-Grade Settings in Irish Primary Schools. Professional Masters of Education Thesis. Ministry of Education, (MoE). (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Learning Media. Robiños, J. R. O., Josephine, P., & Mendoza, L. A. (2020). Learning and Sharing: Understanding Experiences in Teaching Indigenous Learners of Mindoro. IOER International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, 2(2), 108-116. Tomlinson, C. (2002). Invitations to learn. Educational Leadership, 60(1), 6-10

Teaching in multigrade classes is a challenging task: teachers claim to work more and to be more stressed that their colleagues (Proehl et al., 2013; Shareefa 2021) and this condition can affect the quality of teaching. One of the main critical issues relates to the simultaneous management of different grades with differentiated tasks: while teacher engaged with a group for direct instruction or guided learning activities, they also need to set and supervise individual and self directed learning activities for other students. Multi-grade education is common in rural areas of the so-called minority world, i.e. high-income countries such as the United States, Canada, in many European countries and in majority world countries such as India, China, Nepal, Peru, Colombia and Brazil. In Italy nearly 29,000 students attend mixed-age classes, distributed in around 1,500 schools throughout the country. According to school Italian administrators and headmasters, multigrade classes are affected by a high turn over rate among teachers due to their lack of experience and adequate training. In 2020 INDIRE investigated their needs, their teaching styles and the main critical issues by means of a qualitative survey. This paper reports the results of the analysis of 124 cases highlighting the main critical issues related to curriculum design and to the organization of learning groups, schooltime and classroom spaces. The research has highlighted some difficulties that have proved to be constant over time and in the comparison between different contexts (Veenman, 1995;Cornish L. (2021), ) which can guide training and support interventions for teachers (Parigi, Mangione 2023). The investigation points out that while teachers easily learn to mix grades to take advantage of age difference among students, they remain very much focused on guided learning activities and struggle to provide an effective setting to individual and group independent learning. Students autonomy also emerges as a critical issue for multigrade teachers, as most the of lack of experience in the design of individual and group independent learning activities and share a general sense of skepticism towards students autonomy. This paper work explores through case of study about practices observed and analyzed in the field, the dimension of learning and classroom management with respect to some basic disciplines and the use of spaces (internal, common and external) in the management of learning groups with an inclusive perspective.

Cornish L. (2021), History, Context and Future Directions of Multigrade Education, in Cornish L, Taole M.J. (eds), Perspectives on Multigrade Teaching: Research and Practice in South Africa and Australia (1-39), Cham, Springer Nature. Parigi L, Mangione G.R.J (2023) The multigrade: beliefs, difficulties and practices of Italian teachers. In Journal of Education. Anno XV – vol. 1_n. 1, 2023 415-436 Proehl R.A., Douglas S., Elias D., Johnson A.H., Westsmith W. (2013), A Collaborative Approach: Assessing the Impact of Multi-grade Classrooms, Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, 16(2), 417-440. Shareefa, M. (2021). Using differentiated instruction in multigrade classes: A case of a small school. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 41(1), 167-181. Veenman, S. (1995). Cognitive and noncognitive effects of multigrade and multi-age classes: A best-evidence synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 65(4), 319- 381.

The inclusive education perspective of UNESCO’s Framework (Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all) has brought significant changes to educational policy and school management and organisation (Diem, Browning and Sampson, 2020). Research on teaching and learning practices in diverse classrooms is as important as ever. This symposium focusses on an implicitly diverse education context- schools with multigrade classrooms.

In an educational context where schools have been organised according to the principles of enterprise organisations, the tendency in educational systems has been to distribute the population from homogeneous criteria in order to work under criteria of homogeneity. Heterogenous classrooms only have been present when the conditions of depopulation of rural areas cannot organize a complete graduate school. In this context a general model of urban school has been shown as the ideal of school and classrooms with children of different ages have had a negative reputation. Research from different countries have shown this negative perspective attending to the teachers' voices (eg. Mulryan-Kyne, 2004).

European classrooms have become more diverse due to migration both within Europe and from non-European countries with this creating potentially new challenges and opportunities for teachers and teacher education. Multigrade classrooms are present in rural and urban areas. Inclusive teaching practices research become central arenas in this scenario for creating deepened understandings of education and inclusion in different countries and for considering local and global discussions. The main aim of this symposium is therefore to help to broaden knowledge and create a space for exchange, reflection and discussion about the status of teaching practices research in these respects in European countries. Connecting this is a challenge for educational research.

Previous studies have already highlighted the relevance of inclusive teaching practices in multigrade classrooms to deal with social justice and inclusion in conditions of European diversity (e.g. Bjøru, 2023, Mangione et al, 2022, Vigo and Soriano, 2014). This research has dealt with the challenges of globalization, migratory movements and inclusion and the implications and needs that these factors demand from future (and past) teacher professionals, teacher education and teacher education research and policy. They ask questions about how schools, universities and other institutions entrusted with teaching practices to respond to the European Union call to inclusive education, so that they can participate in and develop schools that respect different needs, cultures and lives, and contribute to social justice and inclusion aims (EC, 2017) and in line with this the Symposium has a twofold interest:

• To exchange research knowledge about teaching practices from multigrade schools, attending to inclusive education.
• To promote interest for future research about inclusive and creative teaching practices in rural and urban spaces in schools and hyper-diversity in European countries.

The symposium will include researchers from four European countries whose research has addressed initial teacher education in Higher Education. With a critical perspective as a common theme, the papers will cover issues dealing with different processes of inclusion and exclusion related to initial teacher education perspectives. These issues are of great relevance for European educational research, where markets and Inclusion are co-located. The symposium challenges contemporary initial teacher education and the preparation of teachers for working in diverse classrooms.

This contribution is based on a recently published book chapter entitled ‘Multi-grade Teaching in a Small Rural School in Northern Norway’ (Bjøru, AM., 2023, in Hirshberg, et al, J. (eds)). The research on which the chapter is based, investigates multi-grade teaching in a small rural school in Northern Norway. The aims of the research are to show what characterizes the teaching practices in a multi-grade school in a small rural community, and how these practices enable inclusion and adapted education. It presents a brief insight into parts of the Norwegian framework for education; the Education Act (1998) and the Core Curricula (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, n.d.), and the Subject Curricula (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2022), as well as theory about didactical tools that are useful in multi-grade school settings (Hyry-Beihammer, & Hascher, 2015a; 2015b). The data was collected during a visit to a small rural school. The field work lasted two full days and included observations of classroom sessions, participation at recess and informal talks with the teachers. Findings show that the three didactical tools student group formation/subject organizing, peer-learning and pupils’ personal working plans (Hyry-Beihammer & Hascher, 2015a; 2015b) are useful when conducting multi-grade teaching in a small school with few pupils. Alongside the subject orientation, the paper includes a discussion about the Norwegian Core curriculum’s (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, n.d.) focus on social learning and how this is an important fourth element when working towards a practice that is inclusive and adapted to the individual pupil.

Norway. In: Hirshberg, D.B., Beaton, M.C., Maxwell, G., Turunen, T., Peltokorpi, J. (eds) Education, Equity and Inclusion. Springer Polar Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97460-2_14 Hyry-Beihammer, E.K. & Hascher, T. (2015a). Multigrade Teaching in Primary Education as a Promising Pedagogy for Teacher Education in Austria and Finland. Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 22C, 89-113. http://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720150000022005 Hyry-Beihammer, E.K. & Hascher, T. (2015b). Multi-grade teaching practices in Austrian and Finnish primary schools. International journal of Educational Research, 2015:74, p. 104-113. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2015.07.002 The Education Act. (1998). Act relating to Primary and Secondary Education and Training. (LOV-1998-07-17-61). Lovdata. https://lovdata.no/dokument/NLE/lov/1998-07-17-61 The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. (n.d.). Core curriculum – values and principles for primary and secondary education. https://www.udir.no/lk20/overordnet-del/?lang=eng The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. (2022). Curricula in English. https://www.udir.no/in-english/curricula-in-english/

Initial teacher education programmes (ITE) in Scotland must all be accredited by the General Teaching Council for Scotland, with the expectation that the content of each programme will, ‘to prepare student teachers to become competent, thoughtful and reflective and innovative practitioners’ (GTCS, 2019, 1.2) confident to teach in any part of Scotland. This generic approach is premised on preparing teachers for schools in urban areas, where the majority of the Scottish population lives. In urban areas the majority of classes in primary schools are in single year groups, with few multigrade classrooms. This means that ITE programmes provide little preparation or practicum experience of multi-grade teaching. The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) provides ITE programmes across the rural north and west of Scotland, where there are large numbers of smaller schools and multi-grade classrooms. To prepare new teachers for practice these programmes have a greater emphasis on pedagogies and practicum experience to develop knowledge and skills for teaching in diverse multi-grade classrooms. This paper explores the space between the pedagogies taught in initial teacher programmes in Scotland and focus of early career teachers on the resources available to them in multi-grade classrooms. It builds on the results of research carried out in the University of the Highlands and Islands between 2018 and 2020, as part of the SCDE Attainment Challenge Project (SCDE, 2021), where one of the key findings was that early career teachers are more comfortable planning their teaching through the resources available to them than pedagogical approaches and preferred to work with particular schemes that structured teaching for them. Research to explore this point with graduates teaching in multi-grade classrooms has confirmed these approaches and identified a series of questions for initial teacher education programmes that suggest a focus on resources (Misimanga, 2019) would better prepare teachers for multi-grade classrooms.

General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), 2019 Guidelines of the Accreditation of Initial Teacher Education Programmes in Scotland. Available online: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ITE-Programme-Accreditation-Guidelines.pdf Msimanga, M.R, (2019) Managing the use of resources in multi-grade classrooms, South African Journal of Education, 39(3). 1-9 Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE), (2021) SCDE Attainment challenge Project: Developing pedagogies that work for Pre-service and Early Career Teachers to reduce the Attainment Gap in Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing. Available online: http://www.scde.ac.uk/projects/scde-attainment-challenge-project/ Scottish Government, 2021, Rural Schools in Scotland: definition. Available online: https://www.gov.scot/publications/rural-schools-in-scotland-definition/

Today, it is imperative that schools make profound changes that go beyond educational innovation, enabling social transformation (Feu-Gelis and Torrent-Font, 2019) and inclusion (Ainscow et al., 2006). Following this idea, the research addresses the concept of pedagogical renewal (PR), following with a more open and critical school where in multigrade contexts (Cornish, 2006) active methodologies and democratic structures (Zyngier, 2011; Pericacho Gómez, 2015) and changes in the didactics of the resources used (Carrete-Marín and Domingo-Peñafiel, 2022) are carried out. This study is part of the R&D research project "Resituating pedagogical renewal in Spain from a critical perspective. 5 case studies in secondary schools in Aragon, Catalonia, Castile-Leon, Valencia, and the Basque Country". The project aims, on the one hand, to identify singular elements and practices carried out in the center related to PR for the secondary school stage. On the other hand, it aims to link and analyze educational practices with the innovative pedagogical discourse. This paper presented aims to analyze the traces of Pedagogical Renewal (PR) for the secondary school stage in a primary and secondary school (IE) in rural Catalonia considered to be a renewal school, identifying the singular elements of educational practices, in a multigrade context, that can be related to PR. The methodology is based on an interpretive paradigm, and we carried out a case study in the IE Barnola school in Catalonia, in which interviews with the management team, focus groups, pedagogical stories and participant observations are carried out. The study showed the link between the educational practices of the rural school and PR, as well as the coherence between the discourse and the reality observed in the multigrade classrooms. Unique aspects of the school related to the foundations of PR today were identified. The school's trajectory has also been linked to PR for its different stages, pointing to changes, continuities, and discontinuities. The results show a great diversity of PR elements in the school's practices and discourse, such as the reflective attitude of the teachers, their initial training, inclusion, the importance of the territorial dimension, commitment to the environment, multigrading, democratic practices, networking with the community and transformation through ICT. Of these, this paper focuses on exploring the relationship between multi-stage, inclusion and PR.

Ainscow, M., Booth, T., & Dyson, A. (2006). Improving schools, developing inclusion. Routledge. Carrete-Marín, N., & Domingo-Peñafiel, L. (2022). Textbooks and Teaching Materials in Rural Schools: A Systematic Review. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 12(2), 67-94 https://doi.org/10.26529/cepsj.1288 Cornish,L. (2006) (2006). Multi-age practices and multi-grade classes. In Reaching EFA through multi-grade teaching: Issues, contexts and practices. Kardoorair Press. Feu-Gelis, J., & Torrent.Font, A. (2019). Innovation in the Context of Educational Change and Mirages. In: Peters, M., Heraud, R. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation. Springer, Singapore. Pericacho Gómez, F. (2015). Actualidad de la renovación pedagógica en la comunidad de Madrid: un estudio a través de las escuelas emblemáticas. Evolución y experiencias actuales ante los retos socioeducativos de la sociedad del siglo XXI. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Tesis Doctoral. Zyngier, D. (2011). Rethinking the thinking on democracy in education: What are educators thinking (and doing) about democracy? Education Sciences, 2(4), 1-21.