Ainhoa Flecha

Participación en escuelas de éxito: una investigación comunicativa del proyecto Includ-ed

Resumen Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación dentro del Proyecto Integrado Includ-ed. Estrategias para la inclusión y la cohesión social en Europa desde la educación del VI Programa Marco de la Comisión Europea. Includ-ed es la investigación de mayor nivel científico y de mayores recursos existente en Europa sobre educación escolar. Su valoración como proyecto de excelencia se basó fundamentalmente de la metodología comunicativa crítica utilizada, que se describe en el artículo a través de uno de los proyectos que integran Includ-ed. El Proyecto 6 incluye estudios de caso en dos centros educativos de éxito que tienen bajo nivel socioeconómico y alumnado de minorías culturales. Se identifican cuatro actuaciones de participación de las familias y de la comunidad que se relacionan con el éxito de los centros: formación de familiares, participación en los procesos de toma de decisión, participación en las aulas y espacios de aprendizaje, participación en el currículum y en la evaluación. Se apuntan mejoras derivadas de cada actuación de participación que abren nuevas hipótesis de investigación.

Transforming Violent Selves Through Reflection in Critical Communicative Research

Currently, teenagers are being socialized into a world of violent realities, not only through social interaction but also through interaction via the media, especially via the Internet. Research conducted using the critical communicative methodology has shown that this methodology helps young people to reflect critically about their violent identities in relation to their sexual and affective relationships. It presents opportunities for research participants to question and transform themselves during the research process. In this article, we focus on this transformative dimension of the methodology and illustrate it with qualitative empirical material from two research studies conducted with Spanish youth. One focuses on communicative acts and other on preventing the socialization of gender violence.

Healthier Lives for European Minority Groups: School and Health Care, Lessons from the Roma

On average, the Roma in Europe can expect to die 10 years earlier than the rest of the population, given the health conditions they experience. EU-funded research has informed on successful actions (SA) that when implemented among the Roma provide them new forms of educational participation which have a direct impact on improving their health status, regardless of their educational level. The findings from this research, unanimously endorsed by the European Parliament, have been included in several European Union recommendations and resolutions as part of the EU strategy on Roma inclusion. To analyze these SA, as well as the conditions that promote them and their impact on reducing health inequalities, communicative fieldwork has been conducted with Roma people from a deprived neighbourhood in the South of Spain, who are participating in the previously identified SA. The analysis reveals that these SA enable Roma people to reinforce and enrich specific strategies like improving family cohesion and strengthening their identity, which allow them to improve their overall health. These findings may inform public policies to improve the health condition of the Roma and other vulnerable groups, one goal of the Europe 2020 strategy for a healthier Europe.

Roma Never Die Alone

A common characteristic of Roma as a cultural group is that they do not allow their elderly to die alone. Nevertheless, rooted in a mainstream cultural perspective of health provision services, public institutions usually do not allow Roma people to be with their loved ones in their last moments. Following the communicative methodology, we conducted a communicative case study on the death of the most relevant female Roma leader in Catalonia. She was accompanied by more than two hundred family members and friends in her room and corridor at an important hospital in Barcelona. We performed our research in the 2 years following her death to obtain the reflections of the Roma members involved. These reflections revealed the egalitarian dialogue forged between these Roma members and the hospital personnel, which enabled the former to embrace their culture and support their loved ones before death. Because this dialogue was possible and fruitful, the acknowledgment of cultural diversity and the improvement of the quality of services offered to Roma might also be possible in other health institutions.

Isabel, From Adult Learner to Community Activist

This article presents Isabel’s biography as a case study of how Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLGs) can transform the lives of non-academic women by fostering their social participation. Isabel, an illiterate woman from Barcelona (Spain), engaged in adult education to learn to read and write. This initial motivation was transformed by her participation in DLGs, in which she gained confidence and engaged in women’s organizations, advocating for a more inclusive feminism. More than thirty years later, she has attended international meetings, published articles, and even shared round tables with well-known international feminist scholars such as Judith Butler and Lidia Puigvert.

Successful Communicative Focus Groups With Teenagers and Young People How to Identify the Mirage of Upward Mobility

The concept of the mirage of upward mobility, identified as one of the causes of gender violence, has been analyzed in depth through different communicative fieldwork techniques that were designed dialogically. The development of each of these techniques has been crucial to identifying the roots of the phenomenon. This article addresses the implementation of communicative focus groups comprising adolescent girls and young people (aged 14-18 and 18-25) by highlighting different parts of the research process: (a) how the groups were configured and how the participants were selected, (b) the identification of preexisting barriers to discussing the issue and the different possible reactions, (c) how evidence from the scientific community was introduced to the groups, and (d) how the barriers to identifying the mirage of upward mobility can be overcome through dialogue within the focus groups.

Aportaciones del Programa Marco de Investigación Europea al Análisis del Trabajo Social

En el presente articulo identificamos, a partir de las investigaciones de la comunidad cientifica internacional, dos de las competencias clave para los y las trabajadoras sociales: conocer las actuaciones de exito en el ambito social y desarrollar actos comunicativos dialogicos para recrear las actuaciones de exito en cada contexto. Tambien constatamos como los resultados de la investigacion cientifica internacional demuestran que los grupos culturales rechazan cada vez mas que se les vaya a investigar y quieren y exigen participar en las investigaciones y que se de valor cientifico a sus voces para colaborar en las politicas sociales que necesitan los y las ciudadanas para salir de su exclusion.

Early Childhood Education with Disadvantaged Children: Actions for Success

Early childhood education has become central to achieve the objectives planned for Europe in 2020. Pre-primary education is considered to be a crucial factor to break the closed circle of intergenerational transmission of poverty and, to this respect, the investment with highest returns. In this chapter we present the concept of successful educational action (SEA) and its particular application to the case of early childhood education and care in diverse European countries and among vulnerable populations. Drawing from studies funded under the Framework Programme for Research of the European Commission, we analyze some of the SEAs such as dialogic literary gatherings, interactive groups, or family education. These SEAs have provided evidence of being effective on improving outcomes in cognitive, social, and emotional development of children; in this chapter we will focus on children from ethnic minorities and immigrant background and how SEAs in ECEC contribute to prevent their future disadvantage.

Exploring the Barriers: A Qualitative Study about the Experiences of Mid-SES Roma Navigating the Spanish Healthcare System

Whereas the topic of the ‘cultural sensitivity’ of healthcare systems has been addressed extensively in the US and the UK, literature on the subject in most European countries, specifically looking at the situation of Roma, is still scarce. Drawing on qualitative research conducted mainly in the city of Barcelona under the communicative approach with Roma subjects who have stable socioeconomic positions and higher cultural capitals (end-users, professionals of the healthcare system, and key informants of a regional policy oriented to the improvement of Roma living conditions), the present study aims to fill this gap. We explore the barriers that the Roma face in accessing the healthcare system, reflecting on how these barriers are accentuated by the existing anti-Roma prejudices and institutional arrangements that do not account for minority cultures. Our results point out a series of obstacles at two levels, in the interaction with healthcare professionals, and in relation to existing institutional arrangements, which prevent Roma families from having equal access to the healthcare system. Education stands up as a mechanism to contest anti-Roma sentiments among healthcare professionals.