Drawing upon some of our data and discussions in a number of European projects on inclusion and intercultural education such as URBED and on empirical studies on the development cross professional competences this paper will discuss some of the conditions especially for the development of such competences in projects promoting cooperation between social advisors and teachers and preschool teachers and in projects aiming at their development within teacher education and preschool teachers.

The discussion will focus especially on a Copenhagen research project within UCC/DNCIP upon development of nessesary competences for urban education and social work with students and parents in Copenhagen. For the past 5-6 years the municipality has supported social workers/advisors working stationed at the schools as a way to facilitate the cooperation between the advisors and the schools and the social administration to prevent drop-outs and social exclusion and promote social inclusion and diversity.

Some of the experience and results give evidence that, like in many other European urban contexts, some success in terms of early intervention has been produced within the projects, in terms of less dropouts and increased inclusion. In Copenhagen the results let to the conclusion to extend the model of cooperation to many districts and schools. The study explores, the conditions of success in terms of the competences developed asking: What was actually established as a meaningful cross-professional community of practise (Wenger) and what type of competences can we observe being developed in order to deal with the task of social intervention and inclusion.

As a link to this first study within the profession, we also focus upon a recently established cross professional module within teacher education and social worker/pre school teacher education at UCC to see if similar competences and cross professional communities of practise are promoted from working together on the subject of early intervention and inclusion between students from the two professions, which is part of the aim of the module. 

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