PARENT_CITIZENS · Schools of Citizenship: Parent Councils at Public Schools in Italy, Spain, and France
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-09-01 → 2024-08-31
- EU contribution
- €183,473
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Schools of Citizenship: Parent Councils at Public Schools in Italy, Spain, and France
PARENT CITIZNES examines the role of parent councils in public schools as potential sites for civic integration of immigrant parents in Italy, Spain, and France. The research addresses a gap in current civic education initiatives, which primarily target school children rather than parents. Given that schools are a primary public institution where immigrants interact with others and participate civically, parent councils offer a unique opportunity for civic education and integration. The research objectives include: 1. Mapping the institutional development and membership of parent councils (S01) 2. Analyzing how parent councils use online platforms to promote or challenge civic integration narratives (S02) 3. Exploring immigrant parents' lived experiences and perceptions of parent councils (S03) 4. Identifying best practices for civic integration through parent council activities (S04) The study employs a mixed-method approach, combining archival analysis, semi-structured interviews, and qualitative surveys to gather comprehensive data. This interdisciplinary project bridges education, sociology, and political science to provide insights for national educational policies and local NGOs regarding immigrant populations' needs and institutional arrangements for parents in public schools.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In the wake of economic, climate, and violent crises throughout the Mediterranean region, Europe has recorded more asylum seekers and immigrants during the past decade than ever before. As these new populations seek to integrate into European society, the following questions arise: are there sufficient institutional sites and resources to civically incorporate these incoming individuals and families? More importantly, what are the appropriate and practically effective institutions to build shared values of tolerance, respect, and citizenship? The purpose of this interdisciplinary project is to investigate the public institution most directly responsible for civic education, public schools, in three of the highest immigrant destination countries in Europe: Italy, Spain, and France. Yet while most European wide civic education initiatives focus on school children, the focus of this study is parent participation on parent councils (assemblee genitori, asociación de padres, conseil des parents d'élèves) at schools. In many nation states throughout Europe, parents have the right and expectation to participate at schools through legally codified parent councils, yet they remain little understood as a vehicle for productive civic integration. This absence in the scholarly literature and European institutional initiatives is surprising given the established finding that schools are the primary public institution where immigrants interface with others and participate civically. In sum, parent councils at public schools are uniquely situated as a civic educational institution and remain nearly absent from citizenship education initiatives in Europe. In an effort to illuminate the viability of parent councils for civic integration, this study utilizes a mixed-method framework to build a conceptual understanding through qualitative methods in the first phases of research which inform a representative survey of parent members in the final phase of the study.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA · VeneziaCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union