ECASS is an international project aiming to create innovative solutions for local governments to tackle school segregation in European cities, specifically Barcelona, Milano and Oslo. ECASS is an interdisciplinary collaborative project that focuses on the joint work of policy makers and researchers. The principle of transferability is the key component of the ECASS project. The ECASS project is expected to produce and test innovative solutions in local education policies to improve social and educational inclusion of vulnerable groups.
Objectives
The ECASS project aims at producing and testing innovative solutions in the area of local education policies to improve social and educational inclusion of vulnerable groups. This goal is being reached through the production of training materials to learn about school segregation, the elaboration of European guidelines to inspire policies to tackle school segregation, the analysis and proposals on information policies to reduce school segregation dynamics and, finally, some reflexions on challenges faced by segregated schools in times of Covid pandemic.
The target groups to which the project is addressed include local policymakers with capacity to develop inclusive education policies (main target group), but also policymakers operating at other governance levels. In addition, the project aims to generate resources useful for schools, particularly those with high concentration of vulnerable students, vulnerable families, and other educational stakeholders (such as teacher unions, school-parent associations or civil society organisations working with vulnerable children).
TRANSFERABILITY AND PARTICIPATION
The agenda of activities of the ECASS project is wide and diverse. The project promotes events at each city to discuss its main advances with different involved agents and to improve its impact. These local events are planned to share the projects’ findings and discuss the intellectual outputs with interested parties regarding school segregation.
The agenda of activities of the ECASS project is wide and diverse. The project promotes events at each city to discuss its main advances with different involved agents and to improve its impact. These local events are planned to share the projects’ findings and discuss the intellectual outputs with interested parties regarding school segregation.
People to whom the project’s results are of special interest because of their strategic position in decision-making are invited to participate in the local events. These are mainly policymakers from other municipalities and policymakers and technicians from the regional, national and international level. These actors are key allies of the project and are expected to help disseminate the project’s results.
Other activities such as the development of audiovisual material, the participation in conferences and the publication of academic and non-academic texts is being also developed in the frame of the project.
TEAM
The ECASS project Consortium gathers together six academic and political institutions from three European cities. In Barcelona, the Globalisation, Education and Social Policy research group (GEPS) and the Barcelona Education Consortium; in Milan, the Politecnico Milano and the Comune di Milano; and in Oslo, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the Oslo Kommune.
Globalisation, Education and Social Policies, GEPS
The Globalisation, Education and Social Policies is a research center based in the Department of Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
The common thread among the scholars that are part of GEPS is to develop critical research on educational policies and practices and in particular to assess their impact on educational inequalities and systems from a social justice perspective.
Xavier Bonal
Principal Investigator
Professor in Sociology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and Special Professor in Education and International Development at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He is Director of the Globalisation, Education and Social Policies (GEPS) research group at the Department of Sociology of the UAB and a founding member of the Interdisciplinary Group on Educational Policies.
Sheila González
Researcher
PhD in Public Policy and Social Transformation at the UAB. Currently she is post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Sociology Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research interests include public policy analysis and social inequalities, with an special focus on education and migration.
Judith Jacovkis
RESEARCHER
PhD in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2011). She has participated in different research projects on cash transfer social policies, inequalities and educational policies specially addressed to vulnerable groups.
Alejandro Montes
RESEARCHER
PhD in Sociology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Since 2013, he has been member of the research group on Globalization, Education and Social Policy (GEPS-UAB). He has participated in different research projects on early school leaving, school segregation and educational transitions, all from the perspective of the educational inequalities analysis.
Georgina Giner
RESEARCHER
Sociologist specialist on Public Health. Seh has participated on projects regarding educational public policies and gender inequalities in health. Her main research interests include qualitative analysis and social health inequalities, focusing on the role of education in these.
Claudia Paredes
Project Manager
Anthropologist, and PhD in Humanities from Pompeu Fabra University. Her research interests include the use of fiction as a tool for social analysis, including the decrease in social inequalities and the improvement of education.
Barcelona Education Consortium
The Barcelona Education Consortium is an organization established by the Government of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council that is responsible for managing the education system in the city of Barcelona. It oversees the integrated management of education in Barcelona in accordance with the principles of proximity and effectiveness, with the final goal of improving standards of educational excellence and equity.
Marta Comas
Research and Public Policy Officer
Social educator, anthropologist and PhD in Sociology of Education from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she authored the thesis “The voice of families in the educational system. Commitment to the common good or closure strategy”. She is the Director of the Innovation, Programs and Training Division at the Barcelona Education Consortium. She has published several books and articles on intercultural education, family participation in schools and democratic participation in the educational system.
Àlex Armadàs
Information Systems and Process Design Project Manager
Project Manager at the Barcelona Education Consortium, where he has led projects on design and implementation of information systems, process reengineering and optimization, e-government and data governance. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Economics from UNED, and a Master’s Degree in Operations Management from MIT Global Scale. Current PhD candidate in Operations Management at UPC.
Politecnico di Milano
The Politecnico di Milano is a technical University that offers innovative programs at all levels within its schools of Engineering, Architecture and Design. ECASS is hosted at the Architecture and Urban Studies Department, which carries out research on transformation, care and government of historical and contemporary settlements and landscapes. Based on principles of environmental, social and economic sustainability, it approaches urban contexts, local projects and rooted urban practices.
Constanzo Ranci
Researcher
Professor of Economic Sociology Social Policy Laboratory (Lps). Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU). Politecnico di Milano.
Marta Cordini
Researcher
Junior Research Fellow at the Social Policy Lab at Dastu, Polytechnic of Milan. She obtained her PhD in 2012 at the Catholic University of Milan with a thesis entitled “Home in the migratory experience: meanings, functions and social implications of housing”. She is currently Professor of Urban Sociology. Main research interests include housing, urban sociology, educational inequalities and sociology of migration. She has been involved in a Horizon 2020 project on territorial inequalities and an Ersamus+ Project on School segregation. She is also responsible for the project www.scuolaCovid19.eu
Carolina Pacchi
Researcher
Carolina Pacchi, PhD in Urban and Environmental and Planning, is Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches Planning Theory and Practice and Local Conflict Resolution and is part of the Polimi2040 Roundtable on future strategies for technical education. She has done research on the transformation of urban governance in European cities,
on forms of alternative politics and grassroots activism at local level and she is currently engaged in research on urban and school segregation She has been involved in a number of EU funded research projects on governance in urban, environmental and local development policies.
Comune di Milano
The Comune de Milano is a Local Authority and is responsible for the strategic planning and delivery of a large number of services for the city, including education, social services, economic development, mobility, and housing.
Sabina Uberti – Bona
Project Coordinator
Sabina Uberti-Bona graduated in Cinema History at the University of Bologna. She has worked for many years as a free lance in the field of performing and visual arts and as a Social/Urban Projects Manager. Since June 2019 she has started working with Milano’s Municipality in the Education Department as an employee in the School and Educational Services Area.
Cristiano Scevola
Public Policy Officer
Cristiano Scevola obtained a Master Degree in Architecture from Politecnico of Milan. He had been a teacher for 25 years in middle and high schools. Since 2006 he has been working as the leader of the School Network Office at the Education Department of the Municipality of Milan. On January 2018 he graduated in Management of School and Educational Institutions at Politecnico of Milano.
Sabina Banfi
Policy Maker
Director of the School and Educational Services Area of the Municipality of Milan, she manages the support and integration services for the Milanese schools and is responsible of the whole city public (State ruled), school network. She is in involved in the city’s school and educational policies, the civic schools of the Municipality of Milan and the educational activities and
initiatives promoted by the local authority to integrate the Educational Offer Plan of the public schools. The Area’s work focus on the 6+ age group and it promotes territorial network actions to support the attractiveness of Milan’s public schools. In a system managed by different Institutional levels, the Area is the first interface of Milan’s schools al the local level.
Marina Barbàra
Public Policy Officer
Marina Barbàra, graduated in Mathematics at the University of Milan, has taught Mathematics at Manzoni High School for 31 years. Since August 2019 she has been part of Anasco (Schools’ Register Office) Unit at the Education Department of the Municipality of Milan. Her activity is focused on the analysis of the city schooling occurrences with consideration of urban and socio-demographic issues, in order to study solution and policies for the keeping of the school and educational network of Milan balanced and in line with the constant social developing.
Indro Turri
Public Policy Officer
Indro Turri, who holds a Master’s degree in Modern Literature from the University of Milan, worked in the Citizen Services Area of the Municipality of Milan, dealing with activities functional to the Registry services and concessions for citizenship. In May 2018 he joined the Education Department, where he coordinates the management activities of the AnaSco Office, also dealing with data extraction and analysis in support of municipal education policies.
Norwegian University of Life Sciences
The Norwegian University of Life Sciences is focused on higher education and research within environmental and biosciences. ECASS is hosted at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, which studies a wide range of issues which include spatial planning, and cooperation and negotiation in planning and its relation to power and politics.
Roberta Cucca
Researcher
Roberta Cucca is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, where she leads (with Jin Xue) the Urban Sustainability Research Group at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Previously she was Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Vienna, Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic of Milan, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. Her main research interests are: Social inequalities in contemporary cities; Environmental policies and social vulnerability; Participation in local decision making.
Kostas Mouratidis
Researcher
Kostas Mouratidis is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). His research interests revolve around the interactions between humans and the urban environment including (1) links between the built environment, neighborhoods, social equity, and well-being, (2) links between smart mobility, travel behavior, and land use. His methodological competences include statistical analysis, geographic information systems (GIS), virtual reality (VR) technology, survey research, and qualitative research.
Link
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Rebecca Cavicchia
Researcher
Rebecca Cavicchia is a Ph.D. fellow at the department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). She is part of the Urban Sustainability Research Group (NMBU) and her research interests concern urban sustainability, socio-spatial justice, housing inequalities, and gentrification.
Oslo Kommune
The Oslo Kommune is the executive body of the City of Oslo. The Department of Education at the City Government will represent the City in the project. The department has the management responsibility for the Agency for Education in the city. The Agency is responsible for the operation, development, follow-up and guidance of the educational activities within the laws, frameworks and guidelines established by national and municipal authorities.
Øyvind Bjerkestrand
Public Administrator
Special Adviser at the Department for Education at the City of Oslo. His main areas of responsibility are within primary and secondary education. He has worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Education for several years. In the periods 2006-2010 and 2016-2018 he was seconded as National Expert in the European Commission, Directorate General for Education and Culture. He has extensive knowledge of local, national and European education and integration policies.