Annual Report 2017, Copenhagen

For this year's ECER 113 proposals have been submitted to Network 07. All of these went through a procedure of double-blind reviews. Some of the submission even went through a third review since new reviewers were introduced within the network. 83 % of all applications were accepted in the first round, 8 % were rejected and 9 % redirected. The quality of this years’ proposals was remarkably high, Network 07 registered the lowest rejection rate in years.

Two of the networks convenors, Francesca Gobbo and Eunice Macedo, have been involved as reviewers in the Emerging Researchers Conference. All convenors of network 7, Ghazala Bhatti (Bath Spa University, United Kingdom), David Doubek (Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic), Francesca Gobbo (University of Turin, Italy), Yvonne Leeman (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Eunice Macedo (Porto University, Portugal), Dana Moree (Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic) and Lisa Rosen (University of Cologne, Germany), participated in reviewing the proposals for network 7. Besides to the convenors the following team of reviewers has been involved in this year’s reviewing process: Helen Avery (Lund University, Sweden), Sandra Girbés-Peco (University Rovira i Virgili, Spain), Claudine Kirsch (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg), Sabine Krause (University of Vienna, Austria), Sofia Santos (Porto University, Portugal) and Catherine Smith (Deakin University, Australia).

Overall, Network 07 organized 24 sessions in this year`s conference. Among these there have been six joint sessions and two joint symposia which have been organised with the networks „Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education – NW 5“, “Teacher Education Research – NW 10”, „Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research – NW 14“, „Research in Higher Education – NW 22“, „Policy Studies and Politics of Education – NW 23“, “Educational Leadership – NW 26” and “Didactics – Learning and Teaching – NW 27”.

Furthermore, two symposia, each consisting of a first and a second part, took place. One of the topics was “early school leaving”, the other one focused on “multilingual education and complementary schools”.
Francesca Gobbo, who is an honorary member of Network 07, took part in a Round Table on populism.

The sessions of Network 07 have been mostly well-attended with an average number of 21-30 people being present in each session. The session’s quality was rated ‘good’ or even ‘excellent’ for all sessions which held place by the chair persons. In addition, many chair persons from Network 07 reported on vivid and fruitful discussions in the sessions.

In addition to the convenors of network 7, our chairs this year were Kerstin von Brömssen (West University, Sweden), Sandra Girbés-Peco (University Rovira i Virgili, Spain) and Sofia Santos (Porto University, Portugal).

Network 07 established ties with Network 15 “Research on Partnership in Education” through the organisation of a joint symposia with four papers focussing on the topic “Obstacles and Chances of International and Participatory Research” and furthermore on power-relations in pedagogical settings among members of the majority society and the so called “youth at risk”. Together, this new concept which consisted in the embedding of two papers from each network and the organisation of the symposia with a double chair was tested. It was considered to have been very fruitful and will be elaborated in the future.

Ties to other networks have also been intensified through collaboration in the preparation and realisation of six joint sessions and two joint symposia for this year`s conference. These have been organized in cooperation with Network 5 „Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education – NW 5“, Network 10 “Teacher Education Research”, Network 14 „Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research”. Network 22 „Research in Higher Education”, Network 23 „Policy Studies and Politics of Education“, Network 26 “Educational Leadership” and Network 27 “Didactics – Learning and Teaching – NW 27”.

Last year Network 07 decided to update the network description on the website and to add the term “forced migration” as an additional keyword. This addition may be considered to have been very productive since for this year’s conference there have been six submissions with a focus on forced migration and education in schools as well as in other pedagogical fields. Network 07 aims to intensify its engagement on this topic in the future.

This year’s overall theme “Reforming Education and the Imperative of Constant Change: Ambivalent roles of policy and the role of educational research” was present throughout the sessions in Network 07. Especially the “Imperative of constant change” has been discussed intensively considering global phenomena such as migration and “superdiversity” as theoretical frames for educational research. The challenge of reforming education in the light of social justice is at the centre of the work of Network 07 and many of this year’s submissions put a focus on this.