The dialogic turn of the current global societies has influenced sociological theories, which are increasingly paying attention to the role of egalitarian dialogue, as a key tool to transform different social realities (Touraine 2007; Wright 2010). For instance, Wright (2010), in his analysis of the real utopias that are demonstrating alternative ways to combat the pervasive effects of capitalism, underlined how civil society is constructing deliberative spaces throughout social movements that are achieving collective goals. Similarly, Touraine (2007) stated that dialogue becomes crucial to face important current challenges, such as the increasing cultural diversity in your societies. In this regard, he remarked that intercultural dialogue allows to establish a communication between people with different historical experiences but that share the sample principles.

In the field of education, this dialogic turn has directly influenced the democratic management of schools. As Apple and Beane (2007) stressed in their profound analysis of different educational experiences, there are schools which are radically improving their results in terms of students’ achievement and living together, as a result of their democratic organization. Thus, within this dialogic framework, schools turn into open spaces where different stakeholders are involved, including association of families, students, teachers, NGO’s, trade-unions representatives, professionals and policymakers. All these stakeholders are participating in the school with the common objective of improving the coexistence, and of accelerating the instrumental learning of students (Flecha, 2015). This dialogic transformation in education coincides in time with what different scholars have named as “the Europeanization of education” (Lawn & Grek, 2012; Lawn & Normand, 2015). This phenomenon is influencing educational research and policy in the member states of the European Union (EU). For instance, Lawn and Grek (2012) affirm that the work that European associations, networks and several EU initiatives – such as the Lifelong Learning Programme – are carrying out is producing a new “European arena” in educational policy. Similarly, Lawn and Normand (2015) state that this new space is contributing to consolidate a European cultural identity, which in turn is also shaping the educational policy on the EU. This current scenario, influenced by both the dialogic and the European dimensions, have contributed to generate new opportunities for collaboration with the aim to improve the quality of education. In this context, it is instrumental to analyse those EU-funded research projects that, in this current scenario, are providing evidence on how to tackle the main educational challenges in the European context (school failure, absenteeism, conflict prevention, increasing diversity in schools, etc.). This is the case of the large-scale project of the FP6 INCLUD-ED: Strategies for inclusion and social cohesion in Europe from Education (2006-2011), which became the only research project in the Social Sciences selected by the European Commission among the 10 success stories in scientific research with an added value for society (European Commission, 2011).INCLUD-ED's findings reached a great scientific, social and political impact, and led to the identification of several Successful Educational Actions (SEAs), which have provided evidence of improving academic outcomes and coexistence in European schools located in different socio-economic contexts (Flecha, 2015).

Drawing on the impact achieved by INCLUD-ED, particularly, this study analyses how the “Successful Actions” approach has led to the development of further initiatives at the European scale, that are contributing to create a European network of schools working from the dialogic perspective in order to enhance inclusion and social cohesion among their students and their communities.

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