Raising awareness of the benefits of inclusive education for the general public as well as decision makers

The Project will launch a high-visibility campaign to promote inclusive education and to highlight its added value for the education systems, for learners and for societies in general across the region. The campaign will also aim to fight negative attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices (of the general public and of professional communities) that hamper intercultural dialogue and inclusive approaches in education.

The underlying goal is to provide young people from marginalized and mainstreamed communities with positive messages that encourage active civic participation, tolerance, mutual understanding, and moderation. These multi-layered awareness-raising actions will aim to weave together elements of teaching in the classroom, interaction among school professionals and the community around.

The activities under this component will target two different groups: within the general public, the project will not only target the minority groups themselves, but also place a particular emphasis on sensitising majority groups (parents, media, public servants, pupils/students and others). Within the professional educational community, target groups will include ministries, teachers, professional associations, unions, school professional staff, and universities.

The project will convey to the wider public the messages of tolerance, acceptance, openness, empathy and respect.  For the education community, the message will also be conveyed that not only can they promote inclusive education, but they must do it by highlighting its added value for the education systems, for learners and for societies in general across the region.
 

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Preliminary results from the baseline survey across the 49 pilot schools

“Primary schools more inclusive than secondary ones”

A team of researchers have now completed the two month baseline survey in the 49 pilot schools participating in the project. The survey was designed to capture the views of various stakeholders on the perceived degree of inclusiveness of the schools. Students, teachers, the school project team, parents, local authorities, and where logistically feasible, unenrolled young people, were asked to take part in the survey.

The survey was carried out by a team of researchers affiliated to the LSEE Research Network on Social Cohesion in South Eastern Europe and coordinated by LSE Enterprise, the consulting arm of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The survey led to the development of an ‘Index of Inclusion’ for each school inspired by earlier work carried out by Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow. The Index comprises four dimensions focusing on:

  • Inclusive practices for entry into school,
  • Inclusion within the school,
  • Inclusive teaching and practice approaches,
  • Community engagement.

The stakeholders who took part in the survey were asked to answer a number of questions along the four dimensions with answers scored from 1 to 5, where 1 was the lowest level of perceived inclusiveness and 5 was the highest. The index was therefore built on a 1 to 5 scale expressing the overall average score achieved by each school along the four dimensions.

The preliminary results show that the aggregate level of inclusion is similar across the seven beneficiary countries of the project. Looking at the type of schools, it was found that in all countries primary schools were perceived more inclusive than secondary schools, scoring a cross-country average of 3.86 as opposed to 3.69 and 3.68 for secondary general and secondary vocational schools respectively. There is greater variation between individual schools, with the least inclusive school scoring 3.33 and the most inclusive scoring 4.12.

Interestingly, perceptions of inclusion differ between ‘internal stakeholders’ (e.g. teachers) and ‘external stakeholders’ (e.g. parents), with the former systematically rating the schools as more inclusive than the latter, sometimes even by 1 point average or more. Similarly, when asked about ‘factual’ information (e.g. is there a policy in place for reporting bullying?), members of the school project team gave different answers.

These preliminary findings suggest that while there may not be huge differences across countries or across types of school at the aggregate level, there are substantial differences between schools within countries. In addition, the perception of inclusive education varies greatly among stakeholders. This issue should be investigated further as it may signal a disconnect between the formal existence of inclusive practices and their actual implementation and / or impact.

Overall, the surveys provide a wealth of data that will be certainly of great value to inform the various project partners on the baseline upon which the project activities are being implemented. 


All issues of the project Newsletter can be viewed by clicking below:

Newsletter issue no 5

Newsletter issue no 4

Newsletter issue no 3

Newsletter issue no 2

Newsletter issue no 1

Tender on awareness campaign

Call for Tenders on development and implementation of awareness campaign has been published on the CoE website and is now closed. Detail information can be obtained on the following link:

Development and implementation of awareness campaign to support inclusive education in South East Europe