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Teacher Well-Being and Diversity: Managing language and social diversity in classrooms
Start date: Sep 1, 2016, End date: Aug 31, 2019 PROJECT  FINISHED 

IInclusive education has become increasingly pivotal in Europe given the exponential rise in immigration. In order to effectively meet the needs of especially refugee children, quality inclusion approaches are essential. Many schools are unprepared for this changing context and many teachers are increasingly overwhelmed by the challenges. As a result, children might drop out of school, or their ability to perform adequately at school might be significantly reduced. This project addresses teachers’ strategies for coping with the challenges of their daily professional life and their general well-being which shape the learning environment and influence learners’ motivation and achievements. The overall aim of this project is to enhance teacher well-being by strengthening teachers´ capacity to manage language and social diversity in schools. The complexity and global feature of issues involved highlight the critical importance of addressing the issues across the educational continuum and through international collaboration. The project involves HEIs and linking schools (primary and secondary) as partners from four countries: Limerick University and Mary Immaculate College in Ireland, Professionshøjskolen UCC in Denmark, the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences in Norway. The HEI partners have contributed to teaching, learning and research in the fields of multilingualism, inclusive education and health promoting schools. The South African HEI project partner in particular, has been involved in addressing these issues through a teacher well-being project in socially disadvantaged schools since 2009. The South African partner will through that project offer invaluable experiences in teacher well-being activities to be adapted to the European context. The aim of the project will be achieved through the development of new coping strategies, tools and methods to deal with – as well as benefit from - the diversity of learners. All project partners will also play an active role in this and in the sharing of promising practices related to teacher well-being and diversity in the partner schools throughout the project. The project’s development of coping strategies that focus on the teacher is the key to a sustainable inclusion of all learners in schools. By receiving the appropriate support from the education system, the teachers will be empowered to provide quality education and support to the learners. The project results will therefore be a significant contribution assisting teachers in dealing meaningfully with the new educational challenges. In turn, teacher students will meet an improved curricula in terms of multilingualism, diversity and teacher well- being strategies, thus ensuring their employability and contributing to reducing high staff turn-over. The project will further foster scholarly collaboration through joint knowledge exchange, publication and dissemination of findings. All materials and resources developed as part of the project will be made available to the partner schools for their continued use and engagement. The developed resources will also be made available on HEIs repositories thereby giving all students and interested parties free and open access to them. Key project members will publish research articles and take part in policy and advocacy debates through joint learning forums and social media. The promising practices and recommendations flowing from this project will thus benefit all stakeholders in education providing useful insights into how to meet the needs of all children. Lessons learned from the project – and in particular from South Africa with regard to teacher well –being interventions in schools – will provide a basis for informed further action by other relevant HEIs, government departments and other stakeholders in education across Europe.
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