ECER in Gothenburg 2008, Network 4 Inclusive education: Network report.
The network meeting was held on the 11th of September 2008. 36 people attended the meeting. We were in general very pleased with the conference and the network 4. The papers presented in our Network 4 in Gothenburg were over 60 and people agreed that the quality of the papers had been high – even better than the previous year and people also expressed great satisfaction with the network 4 program.
The convenors have been working on getting even higher quality of papers each year by sending beginners advice on how to improve their abstracts rather than rejecting their abstracts right out. This seems to have helped. Julie Allan stepped down as a co-convenor after serving both as a convenor and co-convenor to the Network 4 for a number of years. Her contribution to help build and extend the network is considerable and she was applauded and thanked with great warmth by the meeting. New co-convenors came in to help the network; Inge Assarson from Sweden and Sip Jan Pijl from then Netherlands joined the convenor group. We feel very fortunate that these people accepted with such grace to come in and help.
Issues discussed by the meeting were:
ECER issues:
- Complaints were made about accessing abstracts – software problems
- It was suggested that the ECER should be advertised more at large conferences such as the AERA
- That the conference booklet should include presenters e-mail addresses and paper numbers at the back of the booklet.
General network issues:
- Good variety of topics
- Good attendance both of “old” members and new faces. The network also had many “visitors” who came and remained for more sessions than they planed. There was also a general agreement that the network felt open, welcoming and inclusive
- Standards of papers, presentation form and program were felt to have improved steadily over time.
- Complaint came about a few papers that had been transferred to other networks (administrative error) without the convenors knowledge.
This year’s program:
- A few of the papers were still felt to have been too descriptive.
- Sessions were coherent and the papers worked well together.
- All chairs turned up in time but while most of the chairs stuck to the timeframe for the papers/sessions a few were not as helpful as they might have been.
Many of these issues and advices were taken on to the Convenors meeting at the end of the conference. Others will be borne in mind as we prepare for the ECER in Viena 2009. We have updated the e-mail list for members of the network and made some use of that list so far.
Minutes taken by Shereen Benjamin.
Dóra S. Bjarnason