Dialogic Inclusion Contract: a Successful Community-Based Transformation of La Paz primary school

Author(s):

Rocío García Carrión(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 05 A, Schooling in Rural/Urban Context II

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

11:00-12:30

Room:

ESI 2 - Aula 4

Chair:

Silvie Kucerova

Contribution

This paper presents the results of the research conducted on the process of transformation based on the involvement of families and the community defined as Dialogic Inclusion Contract. The DIC is a dialogic procedure in which researchers, families, children, community members, and policymakers recreate successful educational actions through egalitarian dialogue in order to transform the educational context for the educational success of children (Aubert, 2010). In less than a year, La Paz School achieved a spectacular improvement inverting the school failure tendency and exclusion that children and their families were suffering. By means of DIC the school engaged in a process to achieve successfully the practices and strategies that have demonstrated to contribute to overcome educational exclusion through community involvement. The huge improvement achieved by La Paz School after the DIC establishment, lead us to have the following objective: To learn and understand the characteristics of the Dialogic Inclusion Contract that have contributed to the transformation of the La Paz School which has gone from being a urban school in a ghettoised situation to a successful school.

There are schools in rural and urban contexts promoting the success for all by means of involving the community. These are decisive tools to achieve the development and education for all. Numerous researches (Warren, 2005; Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Epstein & Sheldon, 2000, Hill & Taylor, 2004, CREA 2006-2011) show that an educational system of quality should have the involvement of the community as one of the decisive elements to overcome inequalities, improve academic results and achieve better climate of coexistence. Therefore, the family, community and school are key elements for the success and inclusion of all by means of a critical education based on the dialogue in which human activity is reflection and action for the transformation of the world (Freire, 2005). It is decisive in urban contexts to know which kind of community participation allow transformations as the developed in La Paz. This is especially relevant for underprivileged contexts, in which the community still plays a further important role in overcoming inequalities.

La Paz school is located in La Milagrosa neighbourhood, a urban area in outskirts of Albacete, a city in South-eastern Spain. Most of the people living there are poor Roma families who have very low educational levels, high unemployment rates and problems associated with drug addiction. Few comprehensive interventions have taken place providing an answer to this phenomenon from a global perspective. From those we have to highlight the interventions that have taken into account the important role of the family and community (Díez, Gatt & Racionero, 2011).

The lessons learned from this school, from its transformation and application of DIC, provide a promising and inspiring vision of the role that community plays in the urban settings to create a school and a society more democratic and free by means of an education of quality for all.

Method

This study has employed the critical communicative methodology (CCM) (Gómez et al., 2006). Using CCM meant that the researcher engaged in continuous dialogue grounded in equal epistemological level, with teachers, family and community members, students, and school administrators. The use of the critical communicative methodology involves considering the individuals not as mere objects of research but as participants in an open dialogue in which their opinions are contrasted with those of the international scientific community. Through this dialogue we jointly interpreted the situation in the school—the failure and the reasons for it—but they also developed a vision of the success they all wanted to achieve. This methodological approach is oriented not only toward describing and interpreting social reality, but also toward transforming it through egalitarian dialogue about daily situations and problems (Gómez, Puigvert, and Flecha, 2011). This qualitative study of the La Paz school involved documental analysis and fieldwork, carried out in three rounds of data collections between 2007-2011. A total of 21 techniques, communicative daily life stories (10), communicative observations (3), and semi-structured interviews (8). The diversity of techniques and the profiles of the research participants validate the validity and reliability of the information.

Expected Outcomes

The Dialogic Inclusion Contract is developed in agreement with a perspective that is dialogic, critical, transformative of the learning and the sociocultural context, communitarian and democratic. The results show that dialogue and interaction created between the involved individuals in the DIC by means of collaboration and collective activities, in meetings, classrooms, assemblies, and decision-making processes has led to several changes and transformations to the individual level that at the same time have changed the social arena. In the DIC, the established dialogues between the different agents involved transform the self and their contexts. The research facilitated the observance that DIC has developed at the basis of the community and the neighbourhood. The DIC has placed the successful educational actions within the school trough dialogue and in community including the voices and the participation of all the community members, in all the spaces, decisions, debates and classrooms. On that basis a common project has been created of an educational centre of success, a dream developed by all the community, with the common compromise of working for the success of all and sharing the meaning and the intentions of their actions.

References

Aubert, A. (2011). Moving beyond social exclusion through dialogue. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 21(1), 63-75. Bryk, A. S. & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. A volume in the american sociological association's rose series in sociology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, CREA. (2006-2011). INCLUD-ED. Strategies for Inclusion and Social Cohesion in Europe from Education, 6th Framework Programme. Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-based Society. CIT4-CT-2006-028603. Directorate-General for Research, European Commission. Díez, J., Gatt, S., & Racionero, S. (2011). Placing immigrant and minority family and community members at the school's centre: The role of community participation. European Journal of Education, 46(2), 184-196 Epstein, J. L., & Sheldon, S. B. (2002). Present and accounted for: Improving student attendance through family and community involvement. Journal of Educational Research, 95(5), 308-18. Flecha, R. (2008) Dialogic learning: educational proposals validated by the international scientific community and aiming towards the school success of all pupils. Conferencia realizada el 8 de octubre en el marco del Cluster “Access and Social Inclusion in Lifelong Learning. Measures to Address Diversity in the Basque Country”. Bilbao Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogía del oprimido. Madrid: Siglo XXI (v.o. 1970). Gómez, J., Latorre, A., Sánchez, M., & Flecha, R. (2006). Metodología comunicativa crítica. Barcelona: El Roure Ciencia. Hill, N. E., & Taylor, L. C. (2004). Parental school involvement and children's academic achievement: Pragmatics and issues. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(4), 161-164. Warren, M. R. (2005). Communities and schools: A new view of urban education reform. Harvard Educational Review, 75(2), 133-173.

Author Information

Rocío García Carrión (presenting / submitting)

University Rovira i Virgili, Spain

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