Annual Report 2007, Ghent

This year's conference meeting in Ghent of the network "Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments Network" in the European Education Research Association very unfortunately had to be cancelled due to illness by both Tony Cotton and John Willumsen.
The Network promotes innovative strategies dealing with intercultural teaching and its learning environment.
Key issues are cultural identity and diversity, multi-ethnic learning groups and communities, intercultural discourses and the role of intercultural education in promoting both the local identities of groups and a sense of common citizenship in Europe.
The conveners of this network are John Willumsen, Pavla Polechova, Tony Cotton, Manfred Bayer and Maria-Angels Subirats de Bayego.

The Network planed three sessions this year, containing 12 papers.
Due to the above mentioned personal reasons and one additional cancellation only the second and third sessions were held not least thanks to the secretariat and the President  Prof. Dr. Ingrid Gogolin who chaired the session, for which we are very grateful.
Most of the papers reflected that the perspective of the network is to create new ways of working and new combinations of ideas and practices in intercultural education.
The sessions were quite successful, initiating interesting discussions and also offering a variety of researchers a chance to present within fields such as: "Creating effective intercultural learning environments" and "Understanding relations between values, ethics and citizenship education".


John Willumsen
Copenhagen, Denmark