Search

The training of professionals for a global world remains a challenge for Higher Education. From an intercultural educational approach, this study describes and analyses two educational proposals in Italy and Spain, which have helped to develop students' intercultural competences, thanks to a teaching framework based on participatory strategies. A multiple case study with a qualitative approach is elaborated to analyse the data on the situation in order to describe and recognise the relevance of examining participation, collaborative culture and social transformation in two Master's Degrees. Findings show that the synergy between participatory strategies and intercultural competences enhances dialogue and renegotiation of meanings, reconceptualisation of diversity, critical thinking and agency for change. The conclusions point to the need to generate collaborative networks to further mobilise the knowledge generated in training for intercultural professionals.

The premise of the present paper is that an intercultural approach to multilingualism in schools generates inclusion and a construction of cultural and linguistic identity that respects the diversity of society and classrooms. Students, teachers, and families participated in an action research project conducted in four schools with the presence of varied home languages. One of the objectives of the project is to foster intercultural education by introducing home languages in the school through identity texts. The process was documented through questionnaires, interviews with families and educators, and classroom observations. Results show that the texts and the curricular activities designed around them have provided spaces for the recognition and valuation of diversity. The self-esteem of alloglot students has improved and the collaborative relationship between school and families has increased. Conclusions point at the potential of multilingualism as a way to enrich the curriculum and to promote equality from diversity in the school context.

This study explores Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a practice that promotes collaborative knowledge construction between researchers and participants. Within this framework, a PAR experience carried out for the transformation of a school in the province of Valencia (Spain) is explored. The aim is to analyse the shared construction of knowledge during the process and the changes produced through the perceptions of the educational community and the research group. From a qualitative methodology, a case study is elaborated through the analysis of documents produced during the research and ad hoc focus groups, and the data obtained are analysed following a mixed categorization. The results show that the shared construction of knowledge during PAR has led to the development of more horizontal roles and strategies between researchers and participants, and changes towards a new school model, for which the improvement of the participation of the agents involved has been key. Elements that invite reflection on the shared construction of knowledge through PAR are discussed, among which stand out the complexity of the researchers' task, the timing, the articulation of the students' voice and the relationship between the type of research carried out and the changes produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From an understanding of knowledge mobilisation as a set of strategies that favour responsible and inclusive research, the aim of this paper is to identify the obstacles or barriers to carrying out such research in higher education institutions, as perceived by researchers. In this descriptive study, content analysis is used to examine semi-structured interviews carried out with eighty research groups from five European countries (Austria, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain) that participated in the research. Results reveal the main barriers researchers perceived are associated with social commitment, relational aspects, encouragement to participate (attitudinal, organisational and institutional barriers) and knowledge mobilisation practices (derived from the research process and research evaluation policies). Ethical and policy implications for more responsible and inclusive research are drawn in the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory Action Research (PAR) in the educational context is a coherent methodology to accompany processes of school democratisation focusing on the key elements of collaborative culture, a sense of belonging and social transformation from an inclusive and intercultural approach. The present case study of a rural school in the Valencian Community (Spain) takes an ethnographic approach to analyse how PAR strategies and processes facilitate the democratisation process and the educational community's perceptions of the transformations in the school culture. Results show an improvement in participation strategies and a more distributed leadership, but they also reveal some resistance to delegating responsibilities and difficulties in empowering children's voices. The conclusions highlight the need to institutionalise cultural change by understanding participation as a fundamental strategy with which to build a more inclusive and intercultural school and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]