Supervised by the University of Montpellier (France), the project CONCRETE reflects a part of the variety of methodological and empirical perspectives present in the fields of Language Acquisition and Inclusive Education. Based on widely shared findings in Early Childhood Education Research (see Torterat, Azaoui & Ruprecht, 2022 for a summary), the consortium’s design consists on utilizing unprecedented initiatives, both emerging and collegiate, so that are likely to facilitate the first forms of schooling for young children, particularly in contexts of social vulnerability. Despite regional disparities, the purpose of CONCRETE is that partners commit through the same methods for identifying, cataloguing and analysing collaborative initiatives involving families, preschool teachers, school teachers, librarians and caregivers that will assist in favoring the linguistic and social success of vulnerable children transitioning from preschool to elementary school. Focused on early learning in preschool education, the practices concern both daycare services and kindergarten classes, as well as more specific configurations, such as “Passerelles” in France, "child reserves" and "awakening bees" (specific designs) in France as in other countries (Torterat, Azaoui, Morel & Soulé, 2022; Ponomariovienė, Jakavonytė-Staškuvienė & Torterat, 2025). Regarding the partnership, CONCRETE gathers representatives from 5 different countries of Europe, and from 3 distinct zones of the EU: Mediterranean, Eastern European and Northean European. On the institutions implied, the activities are taken over by the universities of Montpellier (France), Vytautas Magnus (Lithuania), Stavanger (Norway), Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and the Nikola Prokopiev" Primary school (Bulgaria).

Numerous recommendations from European reports, including Eurydice and FRA (EU Agency for Fundamental Rights), highlight the need to fostering transition from pre-school to primary school for vulnerable children in order to reduce inequalities. CONCRETE address needs abundantly documented by many EU reports and similar resources. For example, the Council Recommendation on early childhood education and care (2022, “Barcelona targets for 2030”) advances “the use of appropriate processes and methodologies, and through data collection, stakeholder involvement and more effective and efficient inter-institutional coordination”. The needs concern in particular children whose family and community environment are multilingual: the inclusion of the Roma, the Ukrainians and other minorities, in Lithuania, in Bulgaria as in France, urgently requires collaborations between all early childhood actors. On these topics, the Toolkit for inclusive early childhood education and care (2020), about the children “in a vulnerable or disadvantaged situation“, promotes designs “offering opportunities for early language exposure and learning through playful activities and considering, where possible, tailored multilingual early childhood programmes, which also take into account the specific needs of bi/multilingual children” (p. 73). Even the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development), through its report on Early childhood education and care workforce development (2022), is in favor to “the implementation of a curriculum and specific instructional practices and creating an organisational climate that encourages collaboration, peer learning and goal setting for continued improvement and innovation” (p. 13). The project CONCRETE aims to respond concretely to these issues.

Our contribution will consist in showing to what extent, and through what processes, such a joint initiative helps bring together the actual practices and representations of social actors from different activity sectors.

The activities that are carried out within the framework of CONCRETE allow to make known, share and disseminate the efficient practices of professionals in education, social work and cultural services in favor of the inclusion of children in vulnerable situations, especially those from minorities. The main objective in the short term is to develop inter-sectoral synergies between these services through information sharing, implementation of common initiatives and joint training sessions. The medium-term objectives are multiple: to improve the exchange of knowledge and resources in order to increase the number and quality of inclusive approaches, to facilitate transitions between preschool services and compulsory school, and to strengthen social cohesion. The specific objectives that the consortium would like to achieve are the following : - Identify activities implemented to foster the inclusion of young children from vulnerable populations in school (in particular the processes of socialisation and language acquisition) - Diagnose the needs of young children and their families and identify practices of intersectoral collaboration that can be implemented by comparing the practices of partners - Train early childhood actors in intersectoral collaboration - Disseminate the results of the projects and communicate for the appropriation of the tools at local level. The results that will be produced by achieving these objectives are : - a common research protocol for identifying actions that favor the inclusion of young children from vulnerable populations - a "good practice" guide on intersectoral collaborations of early childhood stakeholders for the Inclusion of children with the fewest opportunities - training modules for early childhood actors to improve their inter-sectoral synergies - a platform collecting all the tools created in the framework of this project. These objectives are directly linked to the priorities selected by CONCRETE, which will investigate, with the target groups: . the ways in which they support language acquisition, including in multilingual contexts, and young children's socialization on various occasions; . the extent to which they build on families' literacy uses; . the initiatives they carry out on these subjects in collaboration with other sectors of activity; . the follow-up arrangements they implement in these perspectives.

CONCRETE covers 3 areas (France, Lithuania and Bulgaria), and focuses on 3 sectors of activity (education, social work and socio-cultural action). The European dimension of the project brings added value at 3 levels minimum. First, while there may still exist a feeling of distrust regarding the European Union despite the actions launched recently by the Social platform (www.socialplatform.org), it is believed the proposal will help answer the need for social equality and solidarity expressed by 45% of Europeans in 2017. Besides, such a project will strengthen social, scientific and territorial cohesion and solidarity among EU countries and the partners involved. The European cooperation will promote improvement in social and education systems through comparisons between countries having their own specificities, and yet sharing values and common goals for their populations. Second, the added value is also that the European level will bring together a diversity of perspectives on the issue of the inclusion of vulnerable populations that will contribute to an enhanced open-mindedness. Understanding how other countries and institutions manage to cope with this topic in their contexts will help critical thinking, a perspective required when one tackles such important issues. This intercultural dimension is all the more needed in times of conflicts, amplified with the recent migrations triggered by political and religious unrest. Three, the proposal will undoubtedly facilitate European networking between partners and researchers invested in the project. This point is quite important when one knows the rising importance of international scientific cooperation.

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