Suzanne Gatt

Young Maltese children's ideas about plants

Fifty Maltese children, 25 in the second year of pre-school (4 years olds) and 25 in the first year of compulsory education (5 years old), were interviewed about their knowledge of plants. Analysis showed that they had a restricted understanding of the term, meaning something small, with a thin stalk, leaves and a flower. Trees, cacti and nettles were not classified as plants. Childrens knowledge was observed to increase with age. Parents were identified as the main source of knowledge; schools were rarely mentioned. Maltese teachers should be made aware of childrens limited knowledge about plants and they need to use readily available resources in schools to expose pre-school children to the plants in their immediate surroundings.

Promoting Social Inclusion Counting with Everyone: Learning Communities and INCLUD-ED.

The scientific community has provided a wide range of evidence that family and community involvement in schools benefits not only students’ learning but also their surrounding community. The INCLUD‐ED project has conducted case studies of successful schools around Europe that have strong community participation. Some of them are engaged in the Learning Communities project, an international project of educational and social transformation aimed at overcoming school failure. Through these case studies, INCLUD‐ED has gone beyond the state of the art in the field and has provided a classification of types of family and community participation and identified forms of involvement that improve students’ academic achievement. This article presents the benefits of those forms of participation and focuses on some forms of community involvement in the Learning Communities that have been found to improve students’ school learning and other education‐related aspects, such as living together.

De los actos comunicativos de poder a los actos comunicativos dialógicos en las aulas organizadas en grupos interactivos

Resumen: Los grupos interactivos son una de las formas de organizacion de las aulas que esta obteniendo mas exito en Europa en la superacion del fracaso escolar y los problemas de convivencia. Este articulo muestra como en el analisis llevado a cabo en INCLuD-ED se ha encontrado una de las claves para ese exito: la continua sustitucion de actos comunicativos de poder, tipicos de las aulas tradicionales, por actos comuni-cativos dialogicos. Los actos comunicativos de poder que afectan al alumnado excluido en las aulas ordinarias, en espacios de educacion compensatoria, o apartado de los es-pacios regulares a traves de otras formas de segregacion educativa, son transformados en actos comunicativos dialogicos basados en el dialogo igualitario (y que incluyen las condiciones de sinceridad y consenso). Por un lado, el articulo analiza en profundidad actuaciones educativas relacionadas con el fracaso escolar y basadas en actos comuni-cativos de poder, donde predominan las interacciones de poder. Se ha prestado especial atencion a la presencia de actos comunicativos de poder en dinamicas de segregacion que afectan principalmente a estudiantes de grupos vulnerables. Por otro lado, se estu-dian los grupos interactivos como una actuacion educativa de exito donde predominan las interacciones dialogicas basadas en un dialogo igualitario, y donde se consigue un mayor impacto en la mejora de los resultados educativos. Como resultado de nuestro analisis, se identifican los principales elementos que explican la relacion tanto entre los actos comunicativos de poder y el fracaso escolar como entre los actos comunicativos dialogicos y el exito educativo.Palabras Clave: Interacciones dialogicas, interacciones de poder, dialogo igualitario, grupos interactivos, actuaciones educativas de exito.

Implementing the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) at National Level: Some Insights from the PEN Leonardo Project

EQAVET, the quality assurance tool in vocational and educational training, was developed in response to the need for a supply of a trained workforce for labour market needs. Implementation of EQAVET at national level, however, remains a challenge. The research reported here focused on the implementation of QA processes by VET providers in 4 countries: Malta, Italy, Turkey, and Sweden. Data was collected through a questionnaire with 62 VET providers. Responses showed that there is an overall commitment to quality. There is, however, little knowledge of EQAVET across the countries, with the exception of Malta. None the less, all VET providers have implemented some aspects of EQAVET, even if not always intentionally. The situation is, however, far from EQAVET being fully implemented. Reflections are made on whether the EQAVET model specifically or qualification assurance principles assurances should be promoted across Europe.

Educating Practices at Primary School Level and New Forms of Positive Welfare for Families

The research reported here is part of the FP6 Integrated Project INCLUD-ED funded by the European Commission.

Schools Promoting Community Involvement for Inclusion

European society is today more complex (Outhwiate, 2008) with an increased diversity of cultures, languages and religions present as a result of, among other aspects, mobility and immigration (Popkewitz & Lindblad, 2000). Together with the present financial crisis and with limited government investment, educating children for an uncertain future becomes an even greater challenge than before (Robertson, 2005).