Developing high quality early childhood education and care systems by providing sustainability and interculturality trainings to professionals in the sector and fostering the inclusion of migrant and ethnic minority children and families.
Context
We are living in a continuously changing world, where social and geographical mobility is expanding. Despite concepts like interculturality and sustainability are constantly mentioned in media or official documents drafted by educational institutions, these general topics are not always deeply understood. However, ethnically and culturally diverse societies need intercultural education as a strategic resource “towards sustainability, equity, peace, and social cohesion” (Salgado-Orellana et al., 2019). In this context, intercultural education programs should be designed and implemented with the goal of sustainability. In fact, research in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is currently focused on expanding the meaning of sustainability in ECEC, and what it could look like in practice (Boldermo; Ødegaard, 2019). Despite research is moving towards the embedding of these practices in school curricula, analyses of the educational contexts in Italy, Hungary and Spain have shown that early childhood education and care is the one that is lacking the most resources concerning themes of interculturality and sustainability. For this reason, we want to address this gap by developing methodologies, tools and activities that can increase the knowledge and competences of educators and ECEC professionals, starting from the revision of official EU documents like the GreenComp framework. The latter has been created to provide a common ground to learners and guidance to educators by advancing a consensual definition of what sustainability as a competence entails (EU Science HUB). Starting from this point of view, we are also aiming at helping families from different cultural backgrounds to have new points of view and solutions that can ultimately result in the integration of their children, helping families recognize and manage differences – both in school environments and daily family life.
Objectives
- Revise the current EU quality framework for 0-3 ECEC from a sustainability (GreenComp) and interculturality perspective
- Enable intercultural and sustainable change in 0-3 ECEC by providing training and support to ECEC staff; fostering access of children and supporting families (particularly those from migrant or ethnic minority background; developing curricula).
- Increase quality in 0-3 ECEC by creating cross-sector synergies and building transnational capacity of organisations.
Activities
- 20-hour workshop for ECEC staff on sustainable and intercultural activities that can be carried out with children and families
- Workshops with 40 children and 40 family members on intercultural communication and sustainability practices
- Focus groups for the development of an app that integrates practices on positive parenting, home-to-ECEC transition, and accompanying the child in ECEC.
Resources
- Guideline for sustainable and intercultural 0-3 ECEC
- SUSIEE handbook for ECEC staff
- App for families integrating intercultural and sustainable perspectives 0-3 ECEC with Google Translate integration to support families with linguistic difficulties.
Impact
- 0-3 ECEC schools in Bilbao, Barcelona, Budapest and Palermo co-create, test and incorporate intercultural and sustainable ECEC based on SUSIEE methods
- Professionals across partner countries trained in intercultural and sustainable ECEC based on SUSIEE methods
- 0-3 children and their families gaining awareness about interculturality, sustainability and positive parenting in ECEC
Partners
- Universidad del País Vasco (Spain, coordinator)
- Consorcio Haurreskolak (Spain)
- Associacio La Xixa Teatre (Spain)
- CESIE ETS (Italy)
- Associazione di promozione sociale Naturalmente (Italy)
- Partners For Democratic Change (Hungary)
- Johanna Bischitz Centre for Integrated Human Services (Hungary)
