From the perspective of social (in)equalities and social justice in education, forced migration unprecedentedly challenges education systems to pedagogically and politically manage the growing diversity stemming from cultural and social groups' experiences. By bringing together research on inclusive education, this proposal stems from the previous symposium held in Glasgow focusing on the activities of the Erasmus+ KAIII (621365-EPP-1-2020-1-NO-EPPKA3-IPI-SOC-IN) project “Co-created Education through Social Inclusion” (COSI.ed).

Considering the different ways of managing marginalised and disadvantaged groups suffering the disproportional impact of negative outcomes, the COSI.ed project sought to develop a co-created education model in which educational staff and students from underprivileged backgrounds collaborate to share their perspectives on learning experiences, develop knowledge and skills, remove learning barriers, and improve educational experiences and pathways. The indirect approach, the equality literacy (Moshuus & Eide; 2016; Stuart et.al 2019) and the co-creation methodologies were incorporated into the model, which was tested and improved in educational settings in Denmark, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.

This proposal of symposium aims thus at discussing the development of policies and practices oriented towards social inclusion based on the upscaling of a co-created model for achieving social inclusion in European countries with diverse contextual characteristics while emphasising the outcomes of the various education professionals' promising practices.

To this end, the contributions to this symposium will show how the experiences and results of COSI.ed can be sustained in the future while supporting educational and youth policies at several levels, including local, regional, national, and European. The symposium starts by analysing the process of enacting social inclusion policies and follows by identifying promising practices, and the conditions within which they were developed to explore policy recommendations at regional and European levels. The ambition is to portray a meta-analysis of policy outcomes associated with social justice and intercultural education. The second contribution discusses the impact of current educational policies on the cognitive, emotional, and social development of young people at risk. The presentation aims to highlight the need for collaborative efforts in implementing inclusive education and social inclusion policies while introducing a conceptual, scientific model developed within the Co-created Education through Social Inclusion project, implemented in five European countries. The COSI.ed model maintains continuity in theoretical and methodological approaches, evolving through implementation in diverse contexts. Despite common assumptions from the MAcE project, the model undergoes changes and adaptations in different regions, leading to five regional/national working models and one European COSI.ed model. The co-creation process is refined through desk research, data analysis, national models examination, and interviews with practitioners and young people, with a focus on humanising methodology. The third contribution underscores the pressing need for adaptations in European educational policies to address the challenges faced by institutions in qualifying, developing, and supporting diverse cultural and social groups, often marginalized or from disadvantaged backgrounds. The presentation identifies how in the development of the project promising practices are translated into policy recommendations, involving diverse stakeholders. The paper summarises the collaborative processes, identifies key policy recommendations from the voices of youth and professionals, and discusses their potential transferability to different contexts and regional practices.

Moshuus, G. H., & Eide, K. (2016). The Indirect Approach: How to Discover Context When Studying Marginal Youth. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406916656193 Stuart, K., Bunting, M., Boyd, P., Cammack, P., Hornbæk Frostholm, P., Thore Graveson, D., Moshuus, G. Walker, S. (2019). Developing an Equalities Literacy for Practitioners Working with Children, Young People and Families through Action Research. Educational Action Research, 28(3), 362-382