Same procedure as last year – as every year – and then not! Session Zero is about creating identity and building capacity within our network Like other years the aim of this central and recurring workshop is to draw together as many as possible of the presenters in Network 20. The objective is striving to build a small research community which will work together during the conference and sessions in the network. Through active engagement of the participants, we will share our understanding of the beliefs and values, which underpin focuses and challenges in Network 20. We will share our own research background and present activities so that we are not strangers when the presentations take place. Through these activities, we will work at building what Maxine Greeme has called 'common-ground' and by Wenger is named ‘communities of practice’. Similar sessions at previous conferences have proved very successful in building a sense of community amongst presenters to Network 20 for the duration of the conference and beyond this.

The specific activity this year will relate to the conference theme and build upon research in the field of inclusion and exclusion and what this means for research in topics with children, youth and adults at risk related to education, cognitive and social skills, gender, ethnicity, migrants and refugees growing up in a war zone etc. With a quote from the conference agenda “Inclusion and exclusion can be seen as the poles between which the degree of societal integration is organized. On the one side it deals with the big topics of social justice, equality, equity and equal opportunities, on the other side it also marks the limitations of what is inside or outside of the constitutional frame of a society”. This quote in many ways nail the challenges related to this year ECER topic, and not least with a focus on the relation between how the notion of integration OR inclusion is used as the way of framing the many challenges and dilemmas in our societies.

It is this complexity Session Zero addresses with a strong focus on the balance between ‘The Individual perspective’ and ‘The societal perspective’ and to what extent we, as researchers, need to or should take a stand in an epistemological and/or political way. Any way the researcher must realize to what extent s/he will relate the specific research on a third perspective: ‘The human perspective’. This leads us to the research question for this session:

Research in inclusion and exclusion is also about identifying equity and resilience where ethical reflections will be important, so what kind of questions do we need to address in our research regarding inclusion and exclusion?  

With the focus for the Bolzano-Bozen Conference on the dual concepts of “inclusion and exclusion” this session will build on narrative research methods. In the Session Zero process we will share stories about research projects focused on inclusion and exclusion in our research practice and share experiences of how to cope with issues related to inclusion and exclusion. With this dual topic of inclusion and exclusion and its focus on e.g. the vulnerability of children, youth and adults at risk, the issue of ethics comes to the fore. The process will be based on presentations in the form of oral narratives shared in the group of researchers in the first place and as a function of this selected and condensed quotes from narratives will be processed to written statements that somehow represents the essence of doing research in the field of inclusion and exclusion. Hence the methodology in this process will be based on narratives as important for the creation of a meaningful understanding of the self, the self in relation to other researchers, respondents etc. and the self, related to the basic frames for research (Bruner, 2004 and Wenger,2001). Part of the process will focus on how researchers inform and support the role and character of the welfare profession assignment when it comes to focus on inclusion and exclusion and the framing of these dual concepts (Lakoff, 2014). This Session Zero will be presented together with other relevant papers focusing on the very same issue as presented here.

Again, this year the expected conclusions of Session Zero will focus on two obligations. As stated above the session is first and foremost striving to support the community of practice that characterizes Network 20. Secondly the session will contribute to the participators not just to engage in the dilemmas and ambivalences related to educational research projects on inclusion and exclusion but also, and perhaps more proactive, to discuss and nail how to deal with inclusion and exclusion related to the political and societal realities in our European community and in each of our home countries as well. One conclusion on how inclusion and exclusion could be implemented in social policies for all citizens despite ethnic status could be about the framing and reframing of the concepts when as researchers we have to decide on our ethics in this matter.

Booth, T. and Ainscow, M. Index of inclusion – developing learning and participation in schools. Bristol: Center for studies on Inclusive Education. CSIE, 2012). Bruner, J. Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. (Cambridge: Harvard, 2004). Artiles, A. J. et a (editors). Inclusive Inclusion – examining Equity on Five Continents. (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2015). Lakoff, G. Don’t Think of an Elephant – know your values and frame the debate. (White River Junction: Chelsea Green, 2014).