Results

During the three-year period of the project Social Inclusion, Education and Urban Policy for Young Children five concrete products are developed. In terms of the Erasmus+ project these five results are called ‘intellectual outputs’. A description of the five intellectual outputs is provided below (under 'Results').

These results are based on the following central questions and objectives:

Central questions

The project approaches and connects important questions from three different perspectives:

1. How do local city governments, in cooperation with the partners in the field, organize local pedagogical infrastructure which stimulates social inclusion and prevents segregation? How does local government welcome and integrate new groups of children, for instance refugee children, in child care institutions and schools?
2. How do teachers and social educators/ pedagogues deal with the growing diversity (ethnic, cultural, economic, social, physical, psychological) in the group of children they are working with? If the ambition is that most children are included/ integrated and can play, learn and develop together - and if this ambition on a bigger scale can contribute to prevention of segregation and radicalization, how can the professionals meet these challenges?
3. Which competences do professionals and organizations need and how are (future) professionals to be educated? How can higher end vocational education contribute and how can on-the-job training in the field be organized?

Objectives

The aim of the project is to contribute to further development of social inclusive education for the early childhood and to enhance the competences of (future) professionals. More specifically, we focus on interprofessional competences for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) staff working in a context of inclusion of children in urban contexts. Professional profiles have been mapped out only for individual professions in ECEC (see CoRe project: one and one is three) but an overview of interprofessional practice in ECEC and the competences required is lacking at a national and European level. This is a central and innovative focus of this project. The connection between education, work field and city policy in a learning network makes the project unique.

Results

The five intellectual outputs are as follows: a literature review, a competence profile for professionals in the educational ECEC field, films showing best practices of inclusive work, a framework for an educational program and a publication for local policy makers. More information about the five intellectual outputs can be found on the left of this page.

Furthermore training activities, the so called ‘intensive exchange programs’, take place at two moments, in the autumn of 2017 and the autumn of 2018, involving students and lecturers from the two university colleges of Copenhagen and Amsterdam, with a duration of five days each.

These results, and the activities leading thereto, are seen as coherent activities, taking place in a forthcoming process throughout the duration of the project and leading to sustainable results in the participating organizations.

At an international conference in Amsterdam from 23 - 24 May, 2019, at the end of the three-year period of the project , all results will be presented and discussed with a broad group of participants from the educational field, the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) work field and the urban environments.