Session Information
05 SES 03, Overcoming Ghettos: Transformative Schools that Transform Urban Areas
Symposium
Contribution
This symposium is based on a theoretical framework and social and educational research that provide ways to overcome ghettos, from the transformation of schools to the transformation of urban areas (Beck 1992, Gómez et al. 2006, Giddens 1984/2007, Habermas 1984, Ojala 2004, Sen 1999).
Some neighbourhoods experience a situation of marginalisation which condemns children and young people to a future of social exclusion. There also tend to be schools with great deficiencies in these locations. One of these cases is the Milagrosa and the Estrella neighbourhoods, located in Albacete, Spain. In these neighbourhoods many financial and human resources have been employed unsuccessfully, to try to resolve the situation.
For the first time in Spain, the school in the Milagrosa neighbourhood decided on an effective action from the field of education in order to overcome the social exclusion in a deproved urban area. They based the transformation of the school on successful educational actions such as the organisation of heterogeneous groups of students with a reallocation of resources or community participation in decision-making processes in the school. Through the inclusion of actions endorsed by the international scientific community (Apple 2007, Aubert et al. 2008, Sánchez 1999, Searle and Soler 2004, Soler 2004, Vygotsky, 1978), over a period of 3 years more results have been achieved in terms of academic success, an improvement in living together and fostering social cohesion than had been achieved over the last decade. The change from a failed school to a school of quality has been decisive as far as the transformation of the neighbourhood is concerned, and in order to get out of the ghetto.
The proposal responds to the question of how the successful educational actions which transformed the school are then transferred to successful actions in the neighbourhood and how this contributes to overcoming social exclusion?
Methodology
The critical communicative methodology used in this research, is based on current developments in social sciences (Habermas 1984). It has already been successfully employed in previous research carried out withing the European Research Framework Programmes (Touraine et al 2004; Vargas and Gómez 2003).
The analysis of the evidence of success was carried out through 6 case studies which took place over a 4 year period in Malta, Spain, Finland, Lithuania and the United Kingdom using the following techniques: 356 standardized open-ended interviews, 112 communicative observations, 32 communicative focus groups and 156 communicative daily-life stories. One of these case studies was carried out in the aforementioned school.
Results / Expected outcomes
The case studies have demonstrated that the Dialogic Inclusion Contract was a key element for the implementation of successful actions in the various social areas, and to transform the schools and the neighbourhood. The inclusion of all the voices (researchers, politicians and end–users), based on egalitarian dialogue, facilitated the transformation process. In this way, family and community members take part in decision-making processes in relation to successful educational actions which have achieved the transformation of the school. The successful actions are presented here.
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