This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

OVERVIEW

European societies are ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse. This growing diversity, especially with respect to culture, ethnicity and religion, poses both opportunities and challenges to European institutions and European societies. Recent studies show increasing intolerance and social exclusion both in schools and communities (EU Project Accept pluralism, 2010-2013). Particularly, in the secondary schools, the behaviours of social rejection are of high occurrence and have an enormous impact on the further life of the students. Adolescents spend most of their time at school and establishing positive peer relations forms a key aspect of integration. The rejection of youngsters by their peers may impede their further integration in the society, leading to often far beyond than educational consequences such as gender issues, bullying, hate speech, perception of inequality and even violent behaviour. Hence, integrating migrant children and succeeding in host country education systems is a key part of the wider socio-economic integration of migrant populations. Therefore, to increase inclusiveness and social well-being of migrant students it is crucial to implement tailored practical approaches at grassroots level and to boost skills of students, their parents and educators to reverse and reduce the risk on this long-recognised exclusion of migrants. FAIR SCHOOL is one of the initiatives to contribute in tackling this complex issue through developing and implementing inclusive and communication-fostering schemes for the establishment of fair, tolerant and inclusive environment in school based on integration of effective pedagogical techniques: restorative justice combined with proactive context-based and social and emotional learning approaches. It will increase empathy, tolerance and social & communication skills amongst pupils, relevant for the inclusion and mutual understanding between people coming from different socio-cultural backgrounds.

The consortium Fair School proposes to:

• develop strategies in the form of collaborative co-curriculum activities based on restorative practices, narrative and social & emotional learning approaches that can be implemented in classroom and school circles

• increase skills of school educators on inclusive methodologies and pedagogical approaches for fostering pupils’ integration and mutual understanding

• enhance the capacity of schools in addressing social inclusion through implementing FAIR SCHOOL schemes in local schools in 4 EU countries

• increase the consciousness and knowledge of parents and carers of students on their role on the children behaviour in the context of tolerance and open-mindedness toward diversity

• raise awareness on the problem of social cohesion in multicultural schools and to promote cultural diversity at schools

The most relevant of the FAIR SCHOOL results are summarised as follows:

• created and validated FAIR SCHOOL methodology and concrete activities aimed at boosting intercultural communication and tolerance amongst students based on innovative approaches such as restorative practices and social and emotional learning;

• created and validated online capacity building training for teachers and educators (pedagogist, psychologists, sociologists, etc.) on the FAIR SCHOOL schemes: as a result, communication and multicultural techniques of teachers that have participated in online trainings and FAIR SCHOOL courses will be improved; at least 100 teachers trained through online courses and 25 teachers trained during presential transnational shared learning event;

• increased capacity of the schools to be responsive against the multicultural classrooms and thus boosting the level of social inclusion of students coming from migrant and different socio-economic backgrounds through pilot implementation of the FAIR SCHOOL co-curricular activities in selected secondary schools at the participating countries;

• involvement of at least 500 pupils in this pilot implementation of the FAIR SCHOOL schemes at the participating schools leading to their Increased empathy, improved communication skills, self-advocacy and sense of belonging due to improved relationships and community building;

• raised awareness at the educational level of the possibility of improving in a real way the methodological strategies to address the problem of social inclusion and multicultural tolerance and communication amongst the migrant and native-born students. An implementation roadmap outlining the steps to include the FAIR SCHOOL co-curricular activities as a part of the school educational programme will be developed and disseminate amongst the policy makers and educational public administration at local, regional and national levels;

• increased awareness at 6 European countries on the new pedagogical approaches for social inclusion through innovative multicultural communication schemes amongst students and their parents.

Coordinator: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID, Spain

Partners:

• IES IGNACIO ALDECOA, Spain

• In Dialogue Netherlands, Netherlands

• Sociedade Promotora de Estabelecimentos de Ensino, Portugal

• İstanbul Avrupa Araştırmaları Derneği (IAAD), Turkey

• Maltepe Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi, Turkey

• Solidarity and Overseas Service Malta, Malta,

• University of Bialystok, Poland

• Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych Nr 2 w Bialymstoku, Poland

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