Francesca Gobbo helped to establish and promote the work of Network 7, "Social Justice and Intercultural Education" since 1999, when she also co-founded Network 19, "Ethnograpy". She has been an active participant in ECER conferences every year, presenting papers, chairing sessions, organizing symposia and bringing interdisciplinary perspective that was always qualified by an attention for the European dimension. She contributed to the work of EERA as a network convenor as well as a Council Member.
During her term as link convenor of Networ 7 she and the other network convenors succeeded to edit a jointly edited book, based on papers presented in network 7 during two ECER conferences. The preparation of the anthology was a rather long process as the network was keenly engaged with the issue of Europeanization of themes. The editors, all of them network 7 convenors, made a point to present research on intercultural education and social justice that explored other approaches (the arts, for instance, or the life story methodology). The anthology is a good picture of network 7 at that time.
Thanks to Francesca’s membership in IAIE, she was then able to organize a presentation of the anthology at the XIII World Congress of Comparative Education Societies in Sarajevo, within the section of the WCCES and Intercultural Dialogue: Historical Perspectives and Continuing Challenges that was very successful. In addition to the above, Francesca has published journal articles in EERJ and has engaged with discussions about EU policy on education.
Also during her term as link convenor, together with the network convenors, she improved the ways to evaluate abstract proposals for ECER, that was rather positively approved by the proposers themselves.
She also supported efforts
to connect with other networks,
to organize symposia, and internetwork symposia,
participated into the ECER pre-conference and pledged to do so in 2014,
to build a new generation of educators and social scientists by promoting doctoral students’ participation into ECER,
to support the strong connection between EERA and IAIE,
to volunteer for ECER