26. Mai 2010
Plenumsveranstaltung auf dem 35. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie: Sektion Soziologie der Kindheit + Sektion Bildung uns Erziehung: “
Plenumsveranstaltung auf dem 35. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Frankfurt a.M.
am Donnerstag, den 14.10.2010, 9.00-12.30 Uhr
Programm
John Meyer (Stanford):
The empowered child in supra-national society
Hans Bertram/Steffen Kohl (Berlin):
Kinderrechte, Kindeswohl und Teilhabechancen
Richard Münch (Bamburg):
Mit dem PISA-Express in die globale Wissensgesellschaft –
Regimewandel durch die Transnationalisierung des Feldes der Bildung“
Johannes Angermüller (Mainz):
Auf dem Weg zur Numerokratie? Zur diskursiven Konstruktion internationaler Exzellenz in nationalen Kontexten
Edgar Arias (Michigan), Luz Dary Botero (Medellin), Soledad Betancur (Santa Cruz), Angela Stienen (Bern):
Die Durchsetzung globaler Bildungsstandards im Weltsüden: zwischen Subalternisierung und Demokratisierung
10. September 2008
Cooperation Partners for Research Project 2PEACE”
ear Colleagues,Claudio Baraldi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia is looking for international cooperation partners in a project on
International Cooperation on Peace Education and Children Empowerment
Proposal of research project (FP 2009)
Peace Education And Children Empowerment (PEACE). A research on CISV international group activities to analyse the effectiveness of educational values and methodologies.
Claudio Baraldi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
claudio.baraldi@unimore.it
1. Concepts and Objectives
The problematic achievement of intercultural communication and intercultural education in Europe is increasingly seen as a topical issue. The awareness of Europe as multicultural society leads to new and urgent programs, in particular addressed to children, in order to promote their competence and sensitivity in intercultural relations, both inside the specific countries and in the international relationships.
At present, Europe faces a complex combination of intercultural problems: 1) migration problems inside single European countries, requiring adequate politics or policies and institutional interventions; 2) encouragement of relationships among European countries, requiring exchange programs, in particular for children and young people; 3) problems of relationships between Europe and other countries around the world, requiring inspiring political strategies to include Europe in a wider world setting.
CISV (Children International Summer Villages) is an international association which gives specific, but really important answers to these kinds of problems. CISV may be observed as a wide and complex world workshop in which children are working together in constructing and re-constructing intercultural relationships as interpersonal relationships. In fact, intercultural problems are faced through interpersonal encounters and this can promote in children both a better knowledge of different cultures and an opportunity to recognize that this knowledge may lead to meaningful interpersonal relationships. Children learn to live in intercultural “natural” settings with the help of trained adults. This guided socialisation is very helpful in creating in children a “memory” of relations which will last in their daily activities. These children may be much more aware of their relations with people coming from different countries and this is demonstrated by the fact that many of them continue to follow CISV activities for many years, contributing to expanding their awareness, sensitivity and competence.
CISV is not a European association: it is a world association, which is active in 60 countries. However: 1) many local branches and initiatives are settled in Europe; 2) this helps to consider “Europe” as an opportunity to deal with differences and friendships during the activities, both internally (as many delegations are European) and externally (as many other delegations come from all the continents); 3) European children are able to transfer their acquired competence in their daily-life, with strong benefits for the intercultural relations in general.
This important mission needs an accurate educational project, which is provided inside the organisation (you can find further information about this in www.cisv.org). Besides, this project requires an important effort in training the leaders and staff members working in contact with children during the activities as volunteers. Therefore training sessions are regularly promoted by the organisation. However, it is important to understand and evaluate what happens in villages and camps, in order to check the results of this training activity, the volunteers’ sensitivity and competence in working in these situations and the possible needs for further training.
In 2006-2007, in Italy, a research project was carried out to analyse the CISV activities in eight villages for 11 year-old children and four summer camps for 13-15 year-old adolescents. This research concerned the interactions which were achieved inside these villages and camps and the perceptions and representations of the adults and the children involved. This research was carried out by a team of sociologists working at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The results of this research give some important suggestions about the “good practices” and the needs to improve practices in these situations, both for the relationship between children and adults, and for the relationships among the adults (leaders, staff members, JCs).
The objective of this new research proposal concerns: 1) the extension of the research to other European countries, in order to collect more data about peace education in CISV’s initiatives and to be able to make comparisons; 2) the improvement of the research methodology, in cooperation with other research groups in Europe; 3) the planning of a training project (including a standardised program for leaders and staff members and a book which can be used for this purpose) concerning interactions and forms of communication; 4) the dissemination of the importance of the models of peace education and training beyond CISV, as a general proposal for intercultural dialogue in Europe.
2. Progress beyond the state-of-the-art
In the last years there have not been many empirical analyses of interactions dealing with peace education, various models of peace education and conflict management have been suggested, however, their empirical effectiveness has rarely been tested in the interaction.
We start from the basic idea that only looking at processes of implementation it is possible to understand the force and weakness of these models. Looking at the processes of implementation means looking at the interaction and communicative processes which “translate” the abstract meanings into empirical facts. Further, this means looking at the relevant cultural presuppositions of these interactions and communicative processes: orienting value distinctions, roles and personal contributions, forms of expectations. The main task of a research which is interested in peace education is to check which cultures of peace and education are embodied in the social practices. The best way of doing this kind of research is looking directly at these social practices, that is at interactions, and looking at the ways in which these social practices are observed and assessed by the participants.
For this purpose, the mentioned research project collected 1,353 questionnaires (pre-test and post-test in relation to the activities), 95 videotaped group interviews (with adults and children), and 412 hours of videotaped activities in eight villages and four summer camps. This huge amount of data has favoured an accurate analysis of what happens in practice and the culture of peace and education guiding these practices.
The following short summary of the results of this research aims to suggest some ideas for a new proposal. Consequently, here we consider some important issues which have emerged as problematic and thus need further research and training.
CISV activities are generally very successful among children and create great changes in their interest in reciprocal knowledge and friendship. The effects of this huge, complex and difficult community work seem to be very near a “miracle”. As a matter of fact, they are the result of a complex and important work on interactions and communication. This is the reason why we think that an improvement in interaction and communication competence may be crucial for a further improvement of this successful kind of activity and to enhance it also outside CISV.
This is the reason why we think that a new knowledge and the transformation of this knowledge in training programs and an awareness of the cultural presuppositions of communication are crucial.
1. Leaders’ meetings are fundamental for the organisation of the CISV villages and summer camps. During these meetings we observed (a) a relatively low level of participation for many leaders, (b) a mainly hierarchical relationship between the staff members (particularly the camp directors) and the leaders/adolescents presenting planned activities and proposals, (c) a prevailing form of conflict avoidance which favoured the quick conclusion of the meetings but did not let problems and voices come out, (d) a only partial concern for coordination and mediation among the participants, which however found different interesting ways of discussing and reaching conclusions. On the whole, monologues prevailed over empowering dialogue, and staff members’ monologues were particularly frequent. While these monologues seem functional to the meetings’ organisation, more interest in coordination and mediation could maybe give the same results while promoting more participation and more creative ideas.
2. During the more complex games and their debriefing sessions inside the villages, we observed (a) frequent hierarchical relationships between adults (leaders, staff members, sometimes JCs) and children, based on a model of difference in competence (expert and competent adult vs. incompetent child); (b) frequent worries for the organisational success of the activities, rather than for the children’s participation, which brought to consider “good activities” as the core of CISV educational model; (c) insufficient efforts in promoting the children’s active participation and self-expression. The adults’ actions revealed an undervaluation of the social meanings of CISV programmes. In the adults’ views and actions, the children can achieve a better understanding of CISV proposals through their passive experience of values and competence rather than through a participated action. Generally, the adults’ educational monologues clearly prevailed over a dialogic communication between the adults and the children, while the children were often guided by the adults in their participation and reflections.
3. During the activities in the summer camps, the interaction between the adults and the adolescents was much more dialogic. The different age and the different way of looking at the adolescents enhanced the adults’ much more frequent dialogic actions and promotion of participation. However, this kind of actions was abandoned in case of conflicts. Conflicts were mainly managed through strategies of prevention/avoidance and normative resolution, while the adults’ mediation was very rare. This shows that the adults’ monologue tended to be reproduced with the adolescents when problems arose. This was particularly evident when the adolescents presented their planned activities in meetings where they were assessed by the staff and leaders.
4. Interactions among the adolescents in the summer camps were much more symmetrical. This symmetry did not cause particular problems in their interactions, as the adolescents were able to assume roles of coordination in two different ways: both remaining neutral coordinators and actively formulating proposals. In both these forms, peer to peer interactions worked effectively in enhancing a generalised participation and many proposals. However, in this case too, conflicts were frequently avoided rather than faced through dialogic actions. This result demonstrates the effectiveness of leaving adolescents working together, while sometimes interventions of the adults may be an obstacle to an improvement of their autonomous critical thinking.
5. During all these activities, we observed a frequent instrumental use of translation. The adults’ translations for the children were mainly used to improve the organisation of the activities, while it was very rarely used to improve the children’s active participation. On the one hand , the recent trends in translation studies and community interpreting underline the importance of role and active participation of those who translate in the interaction. On the other hand, translation seems to be an increasingly relevant problem in CISV villages and camps: the increasing attention to “good” communication makes the use of English as lingua franca much more important than in the past, far beyond the traditional relevance of non verbal communication. Translation time is a frequent issue in the leader’s meetings and its best use is a common worry; aside conversations in first language during the activities are frequent for those delegations in which the children are less competent in English. The strong differences in language training among the children create also differences and lack of symmetries in their opportunities of active participation. This invites to pay particular attention to translation activities, in order to enhance their use to promote the children’s active participation and creation of ideas and proposals. An interesting exception to the mainstream instrumental use of translation was evident in the encounters among adolescents in the summer camps, where the adolescents occasionally assumed the role of “ad hoc interpreters” and in these situations were able to create much more room for participation through translation than the adults.
6. The adults’ social representations mainly confirm that the main model of interaction is monologue, based on the idea of a hierarchical difference in competence between adults and children and on a lack of trust in children’s abilities to act and interact. The data about the children’s assessment of their experience demonstrate that at the end of the experience, the children do not change their view about cultural differences. In general, the observations of different perspectives and relationships with different delegations are contradictory: the data do not demonstrate clear positive results deriving from CISV experience, as a consistent number of children/adolescents remained indifferent to cultural and personal differences. Moreover, all participants in villages and summer camps (adults and children) declare an ambivalent attitude to dialogic actions, admitting many limits in dialoguing. In particular, the adults seem to observe frequent difficulties in dialoguing with other adults, while the children seem to preserve their prevailing attitudes for non-dialogic actions after the experience. In particular, the adolescents are strongly critical about their relationships with the adults in the summer camps, for both their intrusiveness and their lack of coordination. The participants themselves confirmed that empowering dialogue is not the main form of interaction inside the villages and the camps.
These data seem to demonstrate that the generalised success of CISV experiences derive much more from the We-Identity created as an effect of normative expectations, through the daily-living together rather than from the interaction during the activities. These interactions seem to work as part of a complex “fake world”, while they are not sufficiently effective in their socialisation to the differences inside this world.
We think that the unity between this “world apart” of the CISV community and the effective promotion of adults’ and children’s active participation during the specific activities would significantly improve the success of CISV experiences, adding to the general final condition of individual and collective great satisfaction for the experience, a more specific and accurate socialisation to the importance of active participation and awareness of being involved in particular interactional dynamics with different people. This could also improve the impact of CISV activities on children’s general daily-life and relationships in their home countries.
In particular, a much stronger awareness of the importance of promoting autonomous participation, coordination and mediation might be very useful for the leaders and staff members.
3. Methodology and work plan
The new research proposal may be based on the same methodologies which have been adopted in Italy, at least in part. However, it is necessary to revise some applied aspects of these methodologies and this can be the task of an international work team. The work plan could be worked out/built up by an international group of researchers.
The general plan is to enlarge the data collection to different European countries to understand if the particular conditions of CISV activities in different countries can in some way make differences. The new project focuses on the organisation and implementation of CISV’s educational models dealing with diversity in the interaction. In particular:
1. Organisation of educational models. Exploration of characteristics and possible differences in the leaders’ meetings in different countries. In particular the national/cultural variations of the staff members may influence the interaction, which could be permeated by different national styles. The importance of the staff inside the villages has been clearly demonstrated by the Italian research. Other comparisons may concern the different cultural mixture of the leader groups and the different levels of experience in the organisation in different villages/camps.
2. Implementation of educational models. Enlargement to seminar camps (age: 17-19), in addition to villages (age: 11) and summer camps (age: 13-15) in order to understand in which ways autonomy, responsibility and participation may be differently enhanced in different CISV activities and with which results.
3. Implementation of educational models. Exploration of characteristics and possible differences in the kinds of games and activities, comparing different ways of processing them in different countries. Different conditions in the social, cultural and organisational context could determine differences in the interaction and then in the children’s socialisation.
4. Implementation of educational models. Analysis of translation activities involving different first languages and maybe leaders’ cultural styles. This is particularly important to improve participation among the speakers who are competent in different languages.
4. Implementation
Research teams could work together, deciding in which way, at least in Italy, Great Britain, Sweden/Denmark/Finland; Germany; France; Spain and possibly Eastern European countries and other Mediterranean countries (e.g. Turkey, Israel). In the next months the network could be created and the research project plan could start.
The deadline for the call of the European Framework Programme 2009 is January 13th, 2009.
5. Impact
The impact may be really important for both the knowledge about the effectiveness of interactions in contexts of peace education and intercultural communication and children’s socialisation.
6. Dissemination and exploitation of project results
The main purpose of this kind of research project is to reach a large amount of people interested in peace and intercultural education. This means to prepare a training program which can be widely used inside and outside CISV. This extraordinary experience can both be improved through the creation of new communicative competence and disseminated as an important source of proposals and methodologies for other educational experiences. This requires the writing of an international hand- book for people working in intercultural education and peace education.
10. April 2008
Socipedia.ISA
Es wird ein Experten-Wiki zur Soziologie geben. Die ISA sucht dafür noch Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen, die sich daran beteiligen wollen. Beigefügt der Brief des ISA President:
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to let you know that ISA Executive Committee has approved a
launching of Sociopedia.ISA an online database with entries that are
state-of-the-art reviews areas in the social sciences. This new and
important project of our Association needs RC-WG-TG support and
collaboration.Entries will be included upon an editorial decision based on peer
reviews. A typical Sociopedia-article is of approx. 7.000 words and it
will include: 1. a description of what the article is about; 2.
theoretical approaches; 3. review of empirical evidence accumulated, so
far; 4. assessment of where we stand and where we are heading; 5.
future direction theorizing and research should/might take; 6. annotated
references and suggested reading; 7. references; 8. approx. ten
key-words. Please see the attached document for more details.Sociopedia.ISA is a new concept of knowledge dissemination. It combines
the best of two worlds: the opportunities the Internet offers and the
scientific quality guaranteed by solid and imaginative editing. While
experienced editors make sure that the highest possible quality is
offered, the Internet makes it possible to always provide the most
recent state of the art.
Sociopedia.ISA reflects and offers a living social science.Sociopedia.ISA is a joint venture of the International Sociological
Association and Sage Publications.I would like to invite you to propose names of scholars to serve on the
Editorial Board whose task is to solicit papers and decide on their
acceptation.Please submit your proposal before April 30, 2008 to isa@isa-sociology.org
Best regards,
Michel Wieviorka
ISA President