The paper presented is part of the Reseach Project “Study of the coordination and effectiveness of the inter-professional consulting systems for immigrants’ educational inclusion in Andalusian Schools” (P08-SEJ-03848). The project is financed by the Department of Innovation, Science and Enterprise (Andalusian Council) together with the European Funds FEDER; and the main researcher is Susana Fernández Larragueta. The purposes of the research project are, on one hand, to inquire into the modes of coordination between the different professionals working in education; on the other hand, to study in deep the impact and the effectiveness that these coordination processes have in relation to escolar practices -educational and organizational activities- intended to immigrant students’ inclusion. These purposes are related to our interest in study how different professionals (school and external educative counsellors, intercultural mediators, teachers of Lingüistic Adaptation Classroom, support teachers) collaborate with teachers, in receiving and working with these students. In this sense, the general objective is to know the interprofessional coordination processes, or in other words, which strategies, spaces and types of -internal and external- coordination are established between the different professionals that work at schools for an inclusive education; to what extent is this coordination really happening; and what factors are contributing and hindering these collaborative processes.

The literature we’re taking account consider that, for an ideal process of immigrants’ educational inclusion, it’s neccesary to establish coordination and colaborational networks between the involved professionals; accordingly, it’s important to “revise acttitudes, values, ideas and practices for change a scholar centre into a real learning community” (Echeita et al., 2004). Therefore, we consider significant to investigate the way these professionals work, and at the same time to stand out the idiosyncrassy of each professional sector: educative counsellors, teachers, formation consultants, mediators, etc.; that can offer us a holistic vision about the reality of education, in relation to the potential of interprofessional coordination in favour of immigrant students’ inclusion. Consequently, and because of the influence that professional development has in teachers when they form their thoughts about inclusive education -facing other and more exclusive positions-, in this paper we present the initial evidences of a case study related to a teacher development centre: firstly, in relation to formative processes about how to work with immigrant students; secondly, in relation to the interprofessional coordination between the people involved in these formative projects.

This way, we have considered to analyze the professional development processes from the formative consultants’ perspective, through these research questions: what kind of intercultural formation does this centre offer to the teachers; which conception do their professionals have about the coordination between members of the centre, and between them and other professionals (teachers, head teachers, education inspectors, intercultural mediators, etc.); and, finally, which personal, professional and institutional factors are influencing in that conception, and in those internal and external coordination processes. 

Echeita, G. (Coord.) et al. (2004): Support and help for an education of quality for everyone. Pedagogy Notebooks, 331. Fernández Larragueta, S. and Rodorigo, M. (2011): Interprofessional coordination to work with immigrant students: notes for a research. In Castilla Mesa, M. T., Solbes Martín, V. and Sánchez Sánchez, M. (Coord.), Good practices in intercultural education and coexistence improvement. Wolters Kluwer. Fernández Larragueta, S. and Rodorigo, M. (2011): Study of coordination and effectiveness of inter-professional consulting systems for immigrants’ educational inclusion in Andalusian Schools. ECER European Conference on Educational Research. Berlin, Deuchtland. Lázaro, M.N. and Santos Bocero, G.L. (2010): Teacher professional development and interprofessional coordination. Congress Book of I International Conference “Reinvent the teaching profession”, 282-292. University of Malaga.