ECASS

The project
Most European education systems face the challenge of integrating migrant and/or refugee students into their schools and communities. The concentration of social problems in specific neighborhoods accentuates school dropout problems and makes it extremely difficult for children from disadvantaged families to succeed academically. The growing presence of migrant families also generates middle-class family strategies, so-called white flight, aimed at fleeing schools with a greater presence of students of non-Italian origin; the families of the latter, instead, activate processes of cultural emulation which increase the concentration of groups of migrants in specific schools. These and other factors lead to significant levels of school segregation in various institutions, which is higher than the residential segregation of the reference neighbourhood. Given the list of costs and benefits, reducing school segregation should be an education policy priority, but several obstacles make it difficult for local education agencies to develop effective desegregation policies. Among them a "transfer gap" of existing knowledge on the topic of segregation in the academic field to political decision makers.

Partnership:

  • Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)
  • Politecnico di Milano
  • Municipality of Barcelona (Consorci d'Educació de Barcelona, ​​CEB)
  • Norges Miljo-OgBiovitenskaplige University of Oslo
  • Oslo Municipality
  • City of Milan

This project aims to fill this transfer gap and is designed as
a process of knowledge exchange between academic experts in the field of school inclusion and school segregation studies and local school authorities to produce innovative solutions to address school segregation at local level.

Produce innovative solutions in five key areas in the fight against school segregation: information for families on school provision and the schooling process, regulation of admission policies, criteria for planning school provision (including the definition of catchment areas), decision-making in student assignment and resource management, compensation policies aimed at schools with a high concentration of at-risk students. These solutions will be tested in the partner cities, and will implement the actions already underway with respect to the general objectives of social inclusion, prevention of dropout and school dropout and combating educational poverty for disadvantaged people.

As part of the project, various intellectual works will be produced, for which dissemination activities are planned both at a local level in the three cities involved, and at a European level, in the context of international exchange meetings between local administrators and political decision-makers. They are:

  • European guidelines for policy makers and stakeholders in education.
  • Material for training courses on inclusion and desegregation policies and practices, aimed at political decision-makers;
  • Exchange and comparison tools to encourage cooperation between schools, via the dedicated portal of the European Erasmus+ project
  • Communication/information tools for schools and vulnerable families.

In the face of the current epidemiological situation, and the uncertain prospects for European schools, the Consortium of partners is considering any remodulations of objectives and results that may become necessary to maintain relevance, adherence to reality and incisiveness of the project

Webinair "School at home. The effect of the lockdown on educational inequalities"

  • March 4, 2021 - at 17pm

The pandemic has brought school to the center of public debate, both affirming its centrality in educational processes and highlighting its importance in reducing social inequalities, of which educational inequalities are part; From one day to the next, families found themselves having to mobilize specific skills and having to manage practices usually defined by school times and spaces.

And it is above all on this ground that the remote reorganization of teaching and intermittent openings have played their role in terms of increasing inequalities. This is delicate terrain, on which, even in moments of greater tranquility, complex dynamics operate.

Segregation is part of these dynamics and we would like to start from there, concentrating our efforts on building a dialogue based on the experiences of the different interlocutors, from those of research and analysis to the more specific ones, anchored to that terrain of which we must - learn to take care of ourselves; school is not only the place where the future takes shape, but also the place where the present acts.

The webinar is organized within the project "ECASS - European Cities Against School Segregation", of which the Architecture and Urban Studies department of the Polytechnic of Milan and the Municipality of Milan are partners.

For participation, register here.

Updated: 14/04/2023