Diversity, Communication and Coexistence | VOL2

Exedra Journal, Special issue 2011

Editorial Board Director Ana Maria Sarmento Coelho

Special issue editor Susana Gonçalves Scientific Council Pedro Balaus Custódio - Education Maria Cláudia Perdigão Andrade - Communication and Management Sciences Francisco Rúbio - Art & Humanities

Editorial Commitee José Pacheco (CIC/NDSIM) Margarida Paiva Oliveira (CDI) Carla Matos Dias (CDI)

Production online Edition - José Pacheco (CIC/NDSIM)

- Carla Matos Dias (CDI) logo - Agostinho Franklim Carvalho/Pedro Coutinho graphic project - Agostinho Franklim Carvalho/José Pacheco EXEDRA: Revista Científica Electronic publication of the Politechnic Institute of Coimbra (Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra) / College of Education (Escola Superior de Educação) Periodicity: Semestral ISSN: 1646-9526 ISBN: 978-989-96927-2-5

Copyright Written permission is needed for any reproduction of material published in this Journal.

Address for correspondence EXEDRA: Revista Científica Escola Superior de Educação de Coimbra Praça Heróis do Ultramar 3000-329 Coimbra - Portugal Tel: +351 239793120 - Fax: +351 239 401461 exedra@esec.pt | www.exedrajournal.com

Educational Issues (Vol.2) Edited by Susana Gonรงalves Exedra Journal, Special issue 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME II: EDUCATIONAL ISSUES 07 Foreword: diversity, communication and coexistence

Susana Gonçalves - Special Issue coordinator EDUCATION: FOSTERING THE INTERCULTURAL AGENDA 15-32 Trans-Atlantic intercultural web encounter

Ulla Lundgren 33-50 The evaluation of school coexistence in contexts of cultural diversity

Sebastián Sánchez Fernández, Miguel Ángel Gallardo Vigil & Mª del Mar Ortiz Gómez 51-54 Negotiating co-existence in Cyprus: in search of reconciliation pedagogies at a shared school

Michalinos Zenbylas 55-74 The role of community art projects within and without the school curriculum

Ineke Braak–van Kasteel 75-78 The Silwan Ta’azef Music School in Silwan, East Jerusalem

Danny Felsteiner & Koen Braak 79-86 A pathfinder project in Leicester: a case study in community cohesion

Clive Billighan 87-92 Bridge junior school: involving families from differing backgrounds in shared learning experiences

Peter Driver 93-106 Literature education in multicultural and/or plurilingual context

Maria José Molina Garcia 107 Authors

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Foreword: Diversity, Communication and Coexistence Susana Gonçalves This special edition of the Exedra Journal is dedicated to diversity and issues of communication and coexistence in today’s societies. A number of international contributions has been collected, including research, essays, case studies and reports of school and community development projects.

Authors from Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Netherland, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the USA provide us with a variety of thought-provoking reflections to contribute to the debate on diversity and help guide educational practices, both in formal and non-formal contexts, like school or social education. All together, the contributions gathered for this volume are also relevant reading for those interested in the policies of Education and social management.

This special edition of the Exedra Journal on ‘Diversity, Communication and Coexistence’ is divided into two volumes, the first one dedicated to Social Issues and the second to Educational Issues. The first volume is divided in three parts.

Part 1, Narratives of Coexistence, deals with educational, social and political processes that affect coexistence. Political approaches to diversity in society (and to immigrants and ethnic minorities) have a tremendous impact in school and education, as the example from Denmark (article by Tore Bernt Sørensen) shows. Linguistic differences are central to understanding issues of national identity and international cooperation.

In his article, Jakub Zouhar speaks of the linguistic situation in the present Czech Republic and some of the attitudes behind government educational policy, so contributing an example of the problems faced by small language groups and countries which necessitates the population’s acquisition of other languages to further commerce, culture and mobility of its citizens. Would a common language based on a multicultural contemporary lexicon solve part of the problem? Learning languages promotes understanding and tolerance. This aspect is relevant for the development of basic skills regarding internationalization and promotion of plurilingualism in Europe.

As societies become more multicultural, knowledge of other cultures is gradually more necessary, not only in teaching-learning processes but also in daily life. Would it be something to include in citizen’s and pupils’ education? The article by Eric Cattelain sustains that it is possible to construct an instrumental lexicon for the global citizen.

Drawing upon the work of many distinguished linguists, the author outlines a unique approach called “Indefinition” that deals with semantics across linguistic and cultural lines; this approach with its application under LexisPlanet®, an intercultural lexicon for 7

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the world.

Part 2, The turmoil of illegal immigration, includes three examples of undocumented massive immigrant flows still a burning (political and social) issue for receiving and sending countries. African Maghreb and sub-Saharan immigration to Europe (through Spain, namely Ceuta and Melilla), Asian and Middle East immigration through Patras in Greece and undocumented immigration (namely from Mexico) to Arizona are cases presented in the contributions by Virgílio Gonzalez, Julia Spinthourakis & P. Antonopoulou and William Davey, respectively.

These cases are only a few examples of the massive tragedy of millions of peoples in those Asian, African and south American countries fustigated by poverty, tyranny, disease and misery. Together, these examples should take us to a more humanist view of the social and psychological aspects behind illegal immigration.

Part 3, Psychological borders of coexistence, includes two articles. Focused on the tensions of coexistence, namely under the scope of imperial invasions, the paper contributed by Māra Vidnere tells us about a very hard historical situation: soviet imperialism and its effects on deported imperial Latvian citizens to forced labor camps in Siberia. The third article is an essay by Wolfgang Berg where the author deconstructs “culturalist” notions in favor of the complexities that exist in the citizens of modern society. He defines and explores the concepts of “diversity, culture and transculturality” in a systematic and reasoned way, giving examples of how these concepts actually work and manifest themselves among people in the real world. *** The second volume of this special edition on ‘Diversity, Communication and Coexistence’ is about Educational Issues. It corresponds to part 4 of the edition, including eight articles. Part 4, Fostering the intercultural agenda, is dedicated to the report of a number of examples of intercultural practices, both in formal and informal education, both face to face and virtual. This set of articles deals with different aspects of interculturalism in language, religion, national identity and cultural learning as a means to promote peaceful and enriching intercultural coexistence.

First, Ulla Lundgren informs us about a Trans-Atlantic intercultural university project involving American and Swedish students, giving us a nice example of university cooperation at the level of curriculum teaching and learning. The article looks at the cognitive as well as the affective sides of intercultural competence (IC) through the joint study of fictional texts and the comments and reflections triggered by the participant’s encounter with different readings.

Sebastián Fernández, Miguel Vigil and Maria del Mar Gómez devote their article to 8

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coexistence in schools and present a questionnaire for the evaluation of coexistence in educational contexts of cultural diversity. The questionnaire takes into consideration the complexity of converging factors that affect relations between members of the educational community. The research on which the questionnaire is based is summarized in this article, so contributing to better understanding of the issues in presence.

Michalinos Zenbylas reports on experimental school integration between Greek and Turkish students on the Island of Cyprus. This case study reveals that alienation between the two groups runs along ethnic, religious, political and social lines, for these groups, cohabitation was a bold attempt that yielded some interesting results, focusing mainly on the types of concessions that need to be made by students and teachers alike.

The articles by Ineke Braak–van Kasteel and by Danny Felsteiner & Koen Braak both report Dutch based project of international cooperation through art and music aiming to promote community welfare and education in the Middle East. These community based projects have proven to lessen tensions and foster understanding in conflictively diverse communities and to build bridges between school and culture, families and culture and the home and outside community.

Clive Billighan and Peter Driver are both focused in school projects in the city of Leicester, UK. Clive Billigham reports an initiative taken in Northern England toward breaking down barriers not only in the schools, but in using the schools as centres of outreach, reconciliation and cohesion for the community at large. The procedure and activities that brought together diverse communities (students, parents and teachers) are outlined and detailed feedback is given. Peter Driver deals with a project of school “twinning” for the sake of intercultural learning and community cohesion. Here, activities were planned with a view to involving whole families in the educational process, stimulating more parental involvement with their children’s education and adult interest in life-long learning. Both cases are success stories in the search for activities to promote intercultural understanding and cohesion.

Finally, the article by Maria José Molina Garcia is focused on the first levels of the education system and tells us about the importance of children’s literature in multicultural and plurilingual contexts. The article explores the many beneficial facets of how literature can be used for intercultural education providing us with a list of informative websites and publications.

This set of research, essays and case studies present some aspects of the complex pursuit of harmonious coexistence in a context of social diversity. I hope this special issue, given its international facet and the multiple approaches taken by the authors will contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon and also for the interested

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audience, namely those committed to Education be it for the purpose of research, project development, definition of policies or direct teaching, so that better educational strategies, measures and policies can be envisaged and put into practice.

EDUCATION: FOSTERING THE INTERCULTURAL AGENDA Trans-Atlantic intercultural web encounter Ulla Lundgren The evaluation of school coexistence in contexts of cultural diversity Sebastián Fernández, Miguel G. Vigil & Mª del Mar O. Gómez Negotiating co-existence in Cyprus: in Search of reconciliation pedagogies at a shared school Michalinos Zenbylas The role of community art projects within and without the school curriculum Ineke Braak–van Kasteel The Silwan Ta’azef Music School in Silwan, East Jerusalem Danny Felsteiner & Koen Braak A pathfinder project in Leicester: a case study in community cohesion Clive Billighan Bridge junior school: involving families from differing backgrounds in shared learning experiences Peter Driver Literature education in multicultural and/or plurilingual context Maria José Molina Garcia

EDUCATION: FOSTERING THE INTERCULTURAL AGENDA

D i ve r s i t y ,

c o m m u n i c a t i o n

a n d

c o e x i s t e n c e

Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students Ulla Lundgren

School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University

“It gave me ideas how to think”. Swedish student

Abstract Reading fiction from other cultures may open doors for new perspectives. The aim of this empirical case study was to learn if and how a cross-cultural web-based asynchronous interactive conversation may promote intercultural awareness. This was done by providing teacher students from Sweden and the US with two fictional texts, one from each country, to be discussed on a web platform according to a set task. The study shows that the web-discussion increased the students´ critical cultural awareness.

In further studies the choice of literary texts, student instructions, time management, communication language and medium have to be considered more thoroughly.

Introduction and aims A rapidly changing society is constantly reminding us of global interdependence and the demand for understanding otherness. Today more than ever teachers must become aware of their roles as mediators between cultures. A rising interest in education for global citizenship (Trotta, Jacott & Lundgren, 2008) in multicultural and internationalised societies has emerged in teacher education in many countries However a well known fact is that visions are easy to write but mean little unless put into practice. In our project we have tried to illustrate the educational idea of intercultural understanding to students from an American and a Swedish group of teacher students1.

As they were participating in each a mandatory course with an intercultural agenda they naturally wanted to experience exemplary educational methods in practice. Besides the 15

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objective of personal, intercultural awareness the project was to serve as a pedagogical model for the students possible to use in their future teaching career.

E-communication is cheap, flexible and easily accessible in a large part of the world.

Authentic intercultural encounters are within reach without having to leave school or home. Thus this type of communication has great potential for intercultural learning.

This potential connected to reading literature (Nussbaum, 1997) is the research object of my study. What we wanted to know was if a web-based, asynchronic, interactive conversation across the Atlantic in practice could promote intercultural understanding among pre-service teachers. Is this procedure, used for discussing fictional texts a way to create an intercultural learning process?

The fictions were a pre-requisite for getting any data for the study. However the focus of the study is not on the fictional texts, not even on the discussion on the fictional texts but on the readers’ texts. I am interested in how the sharing of different readings triggered new comments and reflections and made the participants discover new perspectives- if they became aware of new things about themselves in mirroring their own experiences to those of the others.

Theoretical background Culture As this project took place in a cross-cultural context the concept of culture has to be defined. Culture includes nation, gender, class, race, ethnicity, physical ability, age, sexual preferences etc. The concept of culture is defined by Brian Street as a meaning making process not as a state of things.

In fact there is not much point in trying to say what culture is. What can be done, however, is to say what culture does. For what culture does is precisely the work of defining words, ideas, things and groups. We all live our lives in terms of definitions, names and categories that culture creates. The job of studying culture is not of finding and then accepting its definitions but of discovering how and what definitions are made, under what circumstances and for what reasons. These definitions are used, change and sometimes fall into disuse. Indeed, the very term ´culture´ itself, like these other ideas and definitions, changes its meanings and serve different often competing purposes at different times. Culture is an active process of meaning making and contest over definition, including its own definition. This, then, is what I mean by arguing that Culture is a verb (Street 1993, p. 25).

The concept of culture not only applies to nation but to ethnicity, gender, class, age 16

Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

social background and to other variables concerning life style and conditions of life.

Intercultural competence One theoretical starting point underpinning the study is regarding intercultural communication as education not as training. The educational objective is intercultural competence (IC) consisting of knowledge, skills and attitudes (Byram, 1997). He argues that there is a cognitive as well as an affective dimension to IC. According to Byram´s theory IC consists of •

Knowledge

•

Skills

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Attitudes

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Critical cultural awareness

As I see it Byram includes among other things the following to the IC: •

Curiosity and openness

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Knowledge about oneself and the other

•

Skills to interpret and relate what you encounter to your own culture

•

An ability to use the knowledge you have acquired in practice

•

An ability to question your own values

Intercultural competence can be used for many purposes. It can be used for commercial and political purposes to gain profits or advantages but teachers see it as a way to develop intercultural understanding, respect for otherness and to question your own values.

Learning and communication The study also draws on dialogue theory based on Bakhtin, Rommetveit and Dysthe (2002). The interactivity in the web- mediated discussions is assumed to carry an intercultural learning potential.

According to socio-cultural theory originating in Vygotskian thinking and cooperative learning, where students learn in interaction with others and the environment, the web based discussion is a type of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) which is a relevant paradigm (Koschman, 1996; Dysthe 2002).

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Third space The term third space was coined by Homi Bhabha (1992) in Cultural Studies. Claire Kramsch (1993) and others in the field of Applied Linguistics prefers to speak about third place. The two terms have been widely used in various disciplines e.g. culture, language and literature. They imply the area that appears when two cultures meet and both surpass their own borders creating a sort of hybrid space. It is “a place in-between” that belongs to no one; neither the more dominant group or the lesser known or esteemed group. Ana Matos (2004) has argued for the role of literature as an introduction to the third space drawing on Kramsch 2.

The study Texts The students´ discussions were based on two pieces of fiction, extracts from an American and a Swedish novel3. These books are part of the literary canon in their respective countries. They are drawn from the authors’ own experiences and tell about growing up as a minority child within a majority society. The American text chosen by my colleague was The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. It is introduced by the publisher and Amazon.com on the web as

Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is Sandra Cisneros’s greatly admired novel of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Acclaimed by critics, beloved by children, their parents and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, it has entered the canon of coming-of-age classics.

The Swedish text was an extract from Mikael Niemi´s Popular Music. His text was written in Swedish but for obvious reasons we used an English version. The fact that this book is translated implies mediation, from author through interpreter to reader.

When a Beatles record falls into the hands of 11-year-old Matti, neither he nor his home village of Pajala, Sweden, will ever be the same. It is the early 1960s, and both Matti and Pajala are about to enter adolescence. This is a beautiful, poignant, often very funny novel about growing up in a remote area. Niemi writes with real poetry as he strings together the culturally rich vignettes of Matti’s experiences, snapshots of childhood that are at the same time intensely personal and universal (Paula Luedtke, American Library Association).

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Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

Participating students Students were registered in two Teacher Education courses: •

Sweden: Cultural Encounters—compulsory course for undergraduate education. The course was offered both in Swedish and English, the data was collected with the English option.

•

USA: Language/Culture: Issues for Practitioners—compulsory course for the Program Specialist: English as a Second Language Certificate

Name Lena Patricia Stina Charlotta Kristin Frank Teresita LuzMarina Kristine Stephanie Rebecca

Gender F f f f f Male F F F F F

Language Swedish English Swedish Swedish Swedish English Spanish Spanish English English English

Age 40s 20s 20s 20s 20s 40s 40s 30s 40s 20s 20s

Nationality Swedish US Swedish Swedish Swedish US US/PuertoRico Colombian US US US

Students´ assignment The students were given the following instructions: 1. Read the texts (handouts) and start a personal log (includes 2, 3, 4) Write your short personal response to the texts as key words or key sentences (use it for your own thinking and include it in the log) 2. Pick about 3 sentences or short passages from each text that you think are important.

Give the reasons why you chose them. Publish in PingPong.

3. Exchange with your overseas net partner(s) your ideas and reflections that have emerged from your reading of the texts as well as a response to their/his/her ideas, 3-5 postings from each student 4. Reflect upon your partner’s/partners’ reading of the text in comparison with your own, how the discussion with your partner clarified/confused your own experience of the text(Please leave out any reflections on potential technical difficulties) This is an individual reflective piece of writing (2-3 pages) 5. Hand in as an assignment • Personal log of web discussion (2-4) • Reflective piece of writing (5)

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The time schedule was very tight: Tasks 1-3 4 5 6

Swedish students 26 May : 27-1 June 2 June 3 June 3pm

US students 26 May : 27-1 June 2 June 3 June 3pm

Students interactive web conversation, some examples Different kinds of entries Some entries were monologic, others caused one or several comments from one or several participants. Some entries grew and branched out to a network or web. This is an example: 1. Reader A picks a sentence from the literary text and giving motivation for her/his personal choice, submits an entry.

2. Reader B comments on 1 3. Reader A comments on 2 4. Reader C (D; E …) joins in etc

Themes A number of themes can be discerned •

Growing up

•

Friendship

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Brothers and sister

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To be a teacher

•

Language and communication

The themes were often commented on by the students from the point of view of cultural and personal differences. Lack of space only allows me to present two themes in detail. To differentiate citations from the fictional texts from the students’ comments, the latter are in italics.

Growing up and friendship Personal experiences, like memories of childhood were triggered by the text. The students showed identification with the literary characters and their stories. Through this several participants became aware of the different social conditions the group had experienced during childhood. Their open attitudes and their respect for the reactions 20

Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

of the other I consider as examples of intercultural understanding

Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to or who understands my jokes without having me to explain them. ...Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor (Mango Street).

I could relate to this passage because I have a sister and even though there are some similar things about us, we are different, as different as night and day. I have always longed for a friend like a sister. One who listens to secrets and is not only a sister, but a friend. One who you would truly want to be your maid of honor in your wedding. I have never had this until recently. I am in my early 40’s and now I have a friend that I feel close to. I understand the comment that I am a red balloon. I am ready to fly, but my sister is anchoring me down. I do not get the support from her that allows me to fly. I am civil with my sister, but I would not tell her my innermost thought /Tina.

I thought it was really interesting to read about the girl’s longing for a best friend and how you recognized yourself in her thoughts. I did not think about that at all when I read the passage in the book, but that´s because I have such good contact with my two older sisters and I can really understand your thoughts! It’s amazing to have such good contact with a sister/friend and it´s good that you have found a friend since you and your sister are so not alike. it´s interesting how we can interpret a text so differently depending on our experience. /Kristin.

Brothers and sisters The following thematic passage illustrates how a discussion about boys’ and girls’ different worlds starts from an extract of a fictional text. Soon the talk leaves the text and the discussion moves over to the readers´ relationships with their own siblings and to gender equality.

The students who have grown up with equal rights for boys and girls realize what advantage they have had when they are being confronted with different conditions where males and females are valued differently. Their comments are evidence of cultural awareness. Also the difference between women’s situations then and now are being discussed.

The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours. My brothers for example. They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls. Carlos and Kiki are each other’s 21

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best friend...not ours (Mango Street).

The quote relating to the relationship between boys and girls is easy for me to relate to. With a brother who is four years younger then me, my parents could never understand why we were able to get along and play together inside the house (for the most part anyway) and yet at school and outside we led completely separate lives and socially unable or unwilling to talk to one another. In school, the ideal of “what is cool” seemed to take over and we found that it “wasn’t cool” to talk to your older/younger brother or sister /Stephanie.

I would like to speak to the comment that you made about you and your brother being able to get along and play together inside the house but that you didn’t necessarily socialize outside.

Being an only child and living with my mom who was a single parent, I didn’t have much exposure to boys/men as I was growing up and as a result I still don’t feel completely comfortable around men.

Even though you didn’t socialize with your brother, I think it is such a positive that you got along with him as you were growing up. It is excellent experience for girls to spend time with male siblings and fathers who are good role models. I think it is also important that we teach our boys, (sons or male students) to treat women with respect. Some of the students that I teach come from very male dominant cultures and there is a great deal of difference in their approach to male and female teachers. There is real disparity in what they learn at home and the behavior that is expected of them at school /Kristine.

It is very interesting to read what you have written about boys and girls.

When I was a child I never thought about things as girlish or boyish. I have a younger brother and we often played together with both boys and girls. I cannot remember that our parents treated us differently. As I grew up I realized that our society is not gender equal, but personally I have never been unfairly treated. Equality in a friendship or love relationship is self-evident to me. I guess that I’ve been lucky /Stina.

I consider very interesting the comment from Stephanie about her relationship with her brother because I had the same experience that Stina had because we were two sisters and two brothers in my house and we shared everything. It was great to be a friend of our brothers’ or my sister’s friends! Besides our parents treated us equally and it was very difficult for 22

Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

me to see kids in the US who barely speak to their brothers or sisters. I love my brothers and my sister and no matter how far I am from them they are my best friends... yes Stina, I am very lucky too! /Luz.

To be a teacher The students made frequent connections to the teaching profession, discussing their roles and relationship to students. Let us view a quote:

Where do you live?” I pointed at the 3rd floor. “There.” “You live there?

There?” The way she said it made me feel like nothing. I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to (Mango Street).

Almost every student had picked and commented upon this short extract. They all speak about how damaging a prejudiced utterance like this could be to a child. They all agree that a tactless or mean comment is never justified. Some of the American students who have grown up in poor conditions bear witness to experiences similar to the main character in Mango Street.

I believe it all made an impact on all of us. it’s so important for us as teachers not to judge any of our students. We will all come across students of all different social classes or status, and it’s important not to have prejudices! /Kristine.

This part makes me realize how damaging words can be. Sometimes it’s not what we say, but how we say them. As a teacher, it makes me focus on making sure I do not lessen the self esteem of my students in any way. I also get from this that we all want to be accepted and be proud of something. It is hurtful when someone else takes this from us /Tina.

I agree that it is very important how you use words among people and perhaps more in the classroom. It is important that the pupils feel comfortable. Just as you say, it is not what you say, but how you say it that matters /Charlotta.

We as teachers need to keep in mind that regardless of where our students live and what living conditions are for them, they must remain focused to learning and giving them the means to not have to feel ashamed or embarrassed by where they live /Frank.

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Language and communication For natural reasons the importance of language ability for the individual (child) engage the students as their majors are first, second and foreign language teaching and learning. This theme was dominating in the discussions of the two texts. For example did the views of Niila´s mother regarding her children´s mother tongue cause much discussion. This is a familiar field to the students and the text engages them from a power perspective.

She felt inferior. She wanted to give her children what she had never had.

They would be real Swedes, and hence she wanted to teach them Swedish rather than her native Finnish. But as she knew practically no Swedish, she kept quiet (Vittula).

This poor woman does what she thinks is best for her children, not knowing how important it is to have a good mother-tongue in order to learn a second language. Finnish was also seen as an inferior language by the society and even forbidden to use in some schools, so it’s not strange that she felt like this /Lena.

The text initiates a discussion on oppression, stereotypes and prejudices connected to minority languages. Even if Niemi writes about past times, the students notice that there are still language prejudices left in Sweden and the USA.

Niila’s mother felt that it was better for her children to not learn Finnish based on a societal stereotype of inferiority. Unfortunately, this same idea tends to dominate not only the minds of those who speak these “inferior languages” but also in the minds of those who speak a dominant language.

The concept of inferiority is unfortunately supported in most daily circumstances, which is why it is important for teachers to recognize the stereotype and encourage their students to overcome them and not fall under the same biased trap /Stephanie.

Finally, an example of lack of verbal communication, which caused a lively discussion, probably as the professional focus of the participants is on language. The discussions were about prejudices about “the silent child,” children’s alternative ways of communicating and how teachers’ expectations influence children´s progress. Charlotta´s starting point is a quotation from Vittula and she makes the other participants connect to the same sentence.

The oddest thing of all about Niila was that he never spoke (Vittula).

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Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

This can also reflect the prejudice one might have about immigrants. Just because they aren’t able to communicate in for instance Swedish does not mean that they don’t know anything or haven’t got knowledge about various things/ Charlotta.

Charlotta´s entry is commented on by Stephanie who relates to her own experiences.

She has realized what it means to ethnic minority students not to be able to participate on the same linguistic conditions as native students and thus not having the same possibilities at school.

Although I had not thought of it, the way you related these circumstances to immigrants is also interesting and quite true /Stephanie.

In this chapter the students show awareness of which knowledge, skills and attitudes that a teacher has to possess to be able to meet her students according to their own conditions. The web discussion shows that the students are conscious of the importance of being able to make use of their own experiences from childhood and those of other, less privileged people to strengthen students´ self-confidence and feeling of being accepted. Their comments display openness and accepting attitudes. Mainly economic and social conditions are highlighted as well as the demands for equality and everybody´s right to adequate education. When respect for and understanding of other cultures and conditions are being discussed the focus is not mainly on ethnicity.

Students’ reflective pieces of writing When the web discussion was over the students wrote their final reflections and handed them in to their instructors. They said that the reading and the discussion had taught them much about another culture and other perspectives. They have become more aware of societal injustice and recalled incidents from their own childhood, knowledge that they saw as valuable for their teaching profession. There are also comments about similar language policy problems of the two countries.

I learned about Swedish society and I enjoyed reading some comments where the students from Sweden and the USA realized about the privileges and advantages they have in their countries in contrast with the immigrants who unfortunately do not have the same rights even when they work hard to obtain and deserve it.

What surprised me a lot was to read the opinions from the Swedish students and to realize that they have the same problem that the USA has where native people are not using their language because of the globalization of English.

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The students note that they are stimulated by the texts. Thanks to the fiction they catch sight of the others and themselves. The personal reflection starts in the reading process and leads on to talks.

I consider that this intercultural activity was successful because we discovered and learned about other cultures while we were actively part of the process giving our opinions about the books and sharing our own stories with the students who participated in the reflection.

We can notice how the students become aware of hidden stereotypes concerning culture and gender as these are expressed in the literature and in the talks with the other participants.

From this intercultural activity, I became more aware of how culture and cultural values is rooted into literature and therefore all forms of communication. When reading The House on Mango Street, I was able to recognize and relate to the embedded cultural and gender stereotypes.

I was unaware of the stereotype that people from Finland are not talkative. Through my discussions with Charlotta, I was able to recognize this new connection between culture and stereotypes to literature and communication. Having the opportunity to communicate with the students from Sweden provided me with the chance to learn more about the culture and setting intertwined within the text.

The interaction creates a new awareness of the importance of knowing about the backgrounds of the students

My personal interaction through an international web based communication environment to students whose backgrounds are very distinct from my own has opened my eyes to new knowledge that will be valuable when working with students in my own classroom. From our discussions, I have recognized the effect that both adults and children have on young children.

The participants realize that there are a great variety of interpretations depending and individual experiences. On childhood incidents

There is a variety of possible interpretations based on individual backgrounds and knowledge of culture. ESL teachers must therefore value the individual interpretations of their students while at the same time interacting with them.

Texten fĂśrdjupas av samtalet, och nya tolkningar och perspektiv blir synliga: The fictional text is made deeper and new ways of looking at it are revealed.

It not only deepened my understanding of both texts, but it also opened my eyes to new perspectives and interpretations.

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Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

The students have developed valuable insights for their professional life. They see cultural values in the fictional texts and in the communication with their colleagues about the texts. The interaction with the other participants has made the connection between culture and stereotypes in literature and communication more obvious.

Concluding discussion The Swedish students said during the oral evaluation of the project that their discussions probably would have reached a greater depth if they had had been given more time for reflections. In addition a more thorough knowledge of intercultural theories would have benefitted the web discussions. At the same time a demand for connection to various theories would probably have been too coercive or limiting and the result might have been a less spontaneous discussion. At first I had no intention to use the students’ discussions as empirical data for a study. But having read through the material the idea of an empirical study emerged and I got the students’ permission to use their postings.

The texts The fictional texts have served as a basis for the exchange of thoughts and experiences.

They have served as a stepping stone to the transatlantic talk. The interactions could be seen as literary transfer4, (Torell, 2002) i.e. personal connotations to what the texts were about.

The choice of texts might be questioned. The setting of Niemi’s novel is strange even to the Swedish students. They said at the evaluation meeting that a more typical Swedish text might have been more accurate. However the students seem to be quite happy with the selection of texts. Personally I was pleased that they both had a multicultural theme.

They were written by authors who are familiar with the conditions of minority children, which was well in line with the course objectives and with our project. The two texts give excellent examples of blanks (Lehrstellen) (Iser, 1978), which the reader has to fill in.

Cisnero writes a restricted and airy prose and the story is united by isolated sequences or snapshots. Niemi’s fantasies and magic realism also leaves a lot to the reader. Another important aspect is the re-reading. There are reasons to believe that in several cases the students were already familiar with the text from their own country. Most likely this fact influenced their reading which does not seem to have been a disadvantage to the study.

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The language The medium of communication was English which may have been of some significance.

In the Swedish group one out of five students was a native speaker of English while the others had learnt English as a foreign language. The American group consisted of four students whose mother tongue was English and two with Spanish as their first language.

It is difficult to judge to what extent the communication was hindered by the different languages. The Swedish students’ English was very good and it seems the same could be said for the two Spanish speaking students in the American group. However, it cannot be excluded that the medium of English may have been an obstacle. It may have been more difficult to express nuances and emotions in a foreign language, which may have had a negative influence on the dialogue. But no such suggestions were expressed at the evaluation session.

The Swedish text was read in translation implying all the well known problems of changes and distortions. Every translation means additional mediation, from author via translator to reader.

Medium and interaction The students had no or very few technical problems, partly thanks to generous computer support from each institution from the start. Even though not all entries started a branched discussion, surprisingly many displayed a high degree of dialogical. interaction. The students made between 4 and 17 entries, on average 7,5. One participant, Tina, represents the high figure. The number of log-ins averaged 76, a high activity considering that the web-communication lasted for only nine days.

Right from the beginning the discussion was characterised by intimacy, in spite of the students never having met face-to-face. The comments were often quite personal and straightforward. In this respect perhaps the pressure of time was even an advantage.

There was no time to politely “sneak around” a subject. A sense of solidarity has presumably emanated from the fact that they had a professional interest in common and almost all being women. The students seemed to be free and open though some of them had doubts about the medium at the beginning. It also positively influenced a community feeling to the American group who had to jump into the web-communication as a flying start to their course. A feeling of respect and belonging quickly appeared and the medium only got appreciative remarks.

I consider the asynchronous dialogue, i.e. the participants did not chat on-line, as a benefit to the quality of the study. The participants had time for reflection about reading and writing. Thus they had the possibility to produce more nuanced and precise 28

Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

comments. They were also free to take part in the interaction at times that suited each individual.

The intercultural learning process Did the web-mediated interaction about fictional texts promote the students’ intercultural understanding? I would be inclined to answer the question affirmatively.

To express it in terms of Byram´s theoretical model the participants have developed knowledge, acquired skills, worked on their attitudes and displayed a detached view of their own culture. They have shown curiosity and openness, learnt something about other cultures in a broad sense, about other perspectives and about themselves. In short, they have displayed understanding for otherness.

Intercultural understanding is an interactive process which begins with an encounter.

The encounter which is studied in this article was considered by all the students to be a positive one, as they had got new perspectives on their own culture and those of others.

They have taken a step forward. The interpretations of others showed them alternative ways of perception and gave them chances to put new questions to the texts:

In conclusion, this experience was engaging due to the mere fact that we were communicating with students from Sweden. It was also very helpful to see how someone else interpreted the text because it gave me new perspectives to consider. Many times what someone else had to say, led me to question what I had read even more/Tina.

In this learning situation many meeting-places were created: between text and reader, between two or several readers and between the individual student and her own reflective text or piece of writing. No meeting has taken place on someone’s premises but between the partners in that third place that Kramsch is taking about, or to use Bhabha’s expression- in the third space). The encounter has been in the space in-between or the empty space outside the borders that everyone has to go beyond to approach the other5.

In this case also cyberspace could be seen as a third space. The encounter has been made possible thanks to literature which has offered room for personal interpretations.

The cultural encounter between text and reader and between the two groups of readers was not only a meeting between two nations. It was also between young students and more experienced (the age difference between the participants was about 25 years and in the text there were young and old people). The urban and the rural settings were represented by Chicago and the Torne Valley in northern Sweden. Different groups and perspectives met in fiction and in reality through the characters in the books and the 29

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participating students complete in social differences, minority and majority population, male and female. Language policy was compared: The status of Spanish in the USA and Finnish in the north of Sweden. Teacher students met fully formed practicing teachers.

The past met the present, the 60´s and our time in discussions about standards and ideals. The differences revealed were not between nationalities but between individuals, which exemplifies the broader meaning of the concept of culture.

I would argue that the students have developed a deeper self-understanding as their own memories and experiences have been brought to the surface and discussed. This fact is verified by their contributions to the web interaction. To be able to share their personal experiences the students had to decentre from their own lives and memories. They have also become aware of their own relationship towards ethnic minority students and students with different linguistic qualifications. The younger Swedish students thought that they had learnt how to relate to their future students at school from their more experienced American co-participants. The open and straight forward communication made them curious of how the others handled the issue. Everyone thought that the interaction was valuable since all had the same professional interest but individually varied.

Conclusion Returning to the question: Is a web-mediated communication of this kind a feasible way to increase the possibilities for an intercultural learning process? The students’ comments prove that the contribution of the others have helped them to create new meanings and to broaden their understanding of alternative views. “It gave me new ideas how to think”, one student writes. That was exactly the whole purpose of the project.

Widened perspectives and the development of new ideas means that the aim has been fulfilled, at least for some of them. This has happened by using other students´ texts as thinking devices and thus collectively creating knowledge. (Dysthe 2002).

What has been reported in this article could be regarded as pilot project. The teaching/learning experiences achieved have made me interested in developing the method further, preferably with teacher students in a completely different learning culture, e.g. from Asia6. Thus this example could be regarded as a tentative step towards an intercultural methodology applied to reading fiction to educate future teachers and students in schools into intercultural readers.

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Ulla Lundgren • Transatlantic talk: a web-mediated discussion on literary texts between teacher students

References Bhabha, H. (1992). Postcolonial authority and postmodern guilt. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson & P. Treichler (Eds), Cultural studies (pp. 56-67). London: Routledge.

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence.

Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Cisneros, S. (1991). The house on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books.

Dysthe, O. (2002). The learning potential of a web-mediated discussion in a University Course. Studies in Higher Education, 27(3), 339-352.

Iser, W.(1978). The implied reader: patterns of communication in prose fiction from bunyan to beckett. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP. Kramsch, C. (2000). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford Univ.

Press.

Matos, G.A. (2004). Reading literary texts and intercultural literacy. Revista de Estudos Anglo-Portugueses, 13, 165-172.

Niemi, M. (2003). Popular music. London: HarperCollins.

Nussbaum, M. (1997). Cultivating humanity: a classical defence of reform in liberal education.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Street, B. (1993). Culture is a verb. In D. Graddol, L. Thompson & M. Byram, Language and culture (pp. 23-43). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Torell, Ö., (Eds) (2002). () Hur gör man en litteraturläsare? :om skolans litteraturundervisning i Sverige, Ryssland och Finland. Rapport från projektet Literary Competence as a Product of School Culture, Härnösand ;Östersund: Institutionen för humaniora, Mitthögskolan.

Trotta T., Margaret, J., Lundgren L. & Lundgren, U. (2008). Education for world citizenship: preparing students to be agents of social change. CiCe guidelines CiCe Thematic network Project. Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University www.cice/londonmet.ac.uk

Notes 1 I am greatly indebted to Dr Miryam Durante-Espinosa, at the time at Penn State University, PA , (now Valdosta State University, Georgia, whose help made this report possible.

2 Matos, 2004, s.169 cites Kramsch: Here we arrive at literature as a door, a passage, a threshold, a borderline at the intersection of different spaces: its one face turned to the outside, the social, the other, the unknown; and its other to home … our subjective personal space of emotions and experiences. The door may be a third place in its own right, growing “[…] in the interstices between the culture the learner grew up with and the new cultures that he or she is being introduced to”.

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3 Niemi, M. (2003) Popular music. London: HarperCollins. First published in Swedish as Populärmusik från Vittula by Norsteds förlag in 2000. Chapter 1-2.

Cisneros, Sandra (1991) The House on Mango Street. New York : Vintage Books.(tba) 4 The concept literary transfer is discussed in Hur gör man en litteraturläsare? :om skolans litteraturundervisning i Sverige, Ryssland och Finland, Ed. Örjan Torell, 2002.

5 A possible objection would be that the “linguistic space”- the English language- did not belong to all on the same conditions. But as pointed out earlier even the non-native students had a very good knowledge of the language.

6 Later I tried a similar project with teacher students from Hong Kong and Sweden which was a complete failure, but gave me a cultural experience. However that will be another article

32

D i ve r s i t y ,

c o m m u n i c a t i o n

a n d

c o e x i s t e n c e

The evaluation of school coexistence in contexts of cultural diversity Sebastián Sánchez Fernández Miguel Ángel Gallardo Vigil Mª del Mar Ortiz Gómez

Faculty of Education and Humanities at Melilla, University of Granada, Spain Abstract Currently, coexistence at schools seems to have been deteriorating and occasionally violent episodes occur. Mass media are increasingly reporting this kind of news that concerns all society. Major cases involving coexistence tend to stem from problems of indiscipline among students.

Coexistence at schools is a complex phenomenon since several factors converge on it, many of them concerning relations between members of the educational community.

Studies conducted up to the present time have provoked a broad debate about coexistence and, in addition, they have generated many terms. Sometimes these, instead of clarifying, have caused some confusion on the subject (e.g. words such as bullying, peer conflict, school violence, etc).

This chapter focuses on a questionnaire for the evaluation, in the classroom, of coexistence in educational contexts of cultural diversity.

1. The educational importance of coexistence For a long time, members of the educational community have been concerned about coexistence in school centres, regarding it as a complex phenomenon influenced by various factors. Uruñuela (2007) compares the complexities of coexistence in school centres to the image of an iceberg, which presents a visible behaviour that is seen every day, but also a larger hidden side that consists of ideas, opinions, values and beliefs. An awareness of this hidden side is crucial for the formulation of rules and other measures to improve the school environment.

The mid 90’s witnessed a spike in the creation of programmes and activities designed to improve coexistence in school centres, mainly encouraged by the interest 33

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that subsequent research on the topic awakened. Currently, several studies provide information on coexistence problems, focusing mainly on its incidence, types of aggressive behaviour and the contexts in which it occurs (Del Rey, 2001). However, the first studies on school violence and abuse among schoolmates were conducted in the Scandinavian countries during the 1960’s, after several cases of school violence were brought to light, creating sufficient social and educational interest on the issue. Ortega (2000) refers to Dr Meter Paul Heineman, a Swedish psychiatrist, as a pioneer in school coexistence research whose seminal article (Heineman, 1969) called the attention of the entire society to certain types of gang harassment, a phenomenon that he termed “mobbing”. Since then, several studies have been conducted in order to explore the levels of violence in Scandinavian schools as well as to suggest measures for the prevention of new cases.

By the mid 80’s, studies on violence and abuse in school centres extended to the rest of Europe. In Spain, relevant work on the topic started in the 1990’s. Today, several intervention programs have been started with the aim of improving coexistence in schools. At the same time, education legislation is rapidly adapting to these new needs, as is evident from the proliferation of rules, decrees, laws, etc., both at national and subnational level, meant to improve coexistence in school settings.

As Rué (2006) points out, our social and educational communities are increasingly concerned about coexistence in general, but particularly about coexistence in schools, especially in view of mandatory schooling. The following is a brief summary of relevant works on the topic.

In 2004, the Spanish journal Aula de Innovación Educativa (issue 132) dealt with the topic of school violence, reviewing various European initiatives, with several contributions

by Rosario Ortega, among other authors. In 2006, another widely-distributed Spanish education journal, Cuadernos de Pedagogía, published a special issue (359) dealing with school coexistence. Later that year, the journal explored the topic again in the issue 361, this time in relation to family influences. School administration has also become aware of the significant importance of this topic as is demonstrated by publications from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC, 2005), in addition to the adoption of specific rules and regulations1.

On the other hand, the Colectivo Amani (2004) explores the educational opportunities presented by conflicts, especially within culturally diverse settings, and offers a series of proposals to be applied in schools. Alanis and Ruiz (2006) present a series of school activities aimed to prevent racist and xenophobic behaviour in compulsory secondary education (ESO) in Spain, from an Intercultural Education perspective. Segura (2005) discusses the educability of violent minors and presents several proposals based on a 34

Sánchez Fernández, Gallardo Vigil & Ortiz Gómez • The evaluation of school coexistence in contexts of cultural diversity

values-based education approach.

Colell and Escudé (2006a, 2006b) present two important proposals of educational intervention, one for primary schools and another for secondary education (ESO), with the aim of addressing and preventing abuse as disruptive behaviour that contravenes the principles of school coexistence. Moreno (2006) discusses the findings of a survey conducted among Spanish compulsory secondary school students, in which they were asked about the reasons behind disruptive behaviour such as destruction and mistreatment of school materials and facilities.

Martinez (2005) and Puig (2004), in their respective articles on the subject of Education for Citizenship, make interesting connections between this topic and school coexistence. Rubio (2007) also presents an interesting preventive proposal for the improvement of coexistence in secondary schools (ESO).

Contributions from the Peace Research perspective may complement, from another point of view, the existing knowledge on coexistence and its educational implications. A recent approach in Peace Research is that of Imperfect Peace (Muñoz 2001, 2008). This idea of peace gives special emphasis to being aware of the existence, throughout our lives, of many peaceful situations that allow us to settle and regulate conflicts in a non-violent manner, as well as the need for continuous building of spaces and situations for peace, even amidst diverse manifestations of violence, no matter how painful these might be.

Waiting for all manifestations of violence to disappear before working for the promotion of peaceful situations will hardly work, as relationships between groups and individuals tend to be imperfect. On the contrary, addressing imperfections, problems and conflicts by both trying to overcome and/or solve them and learning from experience, helps us to advance in the creation of networks with peaceful realities and situations, which though imperfect, will be progressively less violent. These views are of critical relevance when it comes to understanding and explaining coexistence relationships in school settings.

Sanchez (2009), from the perspective of Imperfect Peace, adds that adopting peace as part of the institutional culture of school centres would lead to mainstreaming the following principles, which clearly play a role in coexistence relationships: •

Appreciation of diversity in general, and especially cultural diversity, as a means for enriching relationships established among groups and people within school centres.

However, this also implies an increased complexity in the actions of all individuals involved, especially that of the professionals who work in these centres.

•

In accordance with the aforementioned definition of Imperfect Peace, to consider imperfection in school centres as an intrinsic characteristic that conditions all actions developed in them. It is not possible to wait until all situations within school centres are free of problems before formulating strategies for their improvement. Rather than wait for perfection it is convenient to take advantage of positive manifestations

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of intercultural and interpersonal relationships which, although not totally problemfree, are habitual in school settings and can be used as a source of learning to improve coexistence.

•

Learning to see, perceive, recognise and assess peaceful and non-violent experiences, as mentioned before, that occur in school settings and convert them into educational resources (Sanchez y Mesa, 2002) for an Education for the Culture of Peace.

•

To consider conflicts as a common feature of life, and there are few places where life is more evident than in school centres. Therefore, it is practically impossible to have a conflict-free school space (classroom, school yard, halls and corridors, teachers’ offices or school centre). It is necessary to learn how to live with conflict and above all, to use it as a basis to develop and organise educational activities oriented towards learning strategies for the regulation and settlement of conflicts.

•

To create educational situations that permit learning how to coexist and appreciate it, even amidst conflict and problems.

2. Elements for best practices of school coexistence In a recent work, Caballero (2009) explores the factors involved in school coexistence that make it a differentiating element among centres. The author studied how school coexistence is approached and dealt with in 10 school centres in the province of Granada, Spain (5 pre-school and primary school centres, 4 secondary school centres and 1 preschool centre). In this study, the author detected a series of aspects that are crucial for the determination of the main characteristics of best practices in education that foster school coexistence: group cohesion, establishment and compliance of rules, values-based education, development of socio-emotional skills and proper regulation of conflict. The following section explores the most relevant findings of this study regarding each of the components mentioned as best practices for school coexistence in order to use them as a referential approach in school settings.

2.1. Group cohesion Group cohesion promotes the necessary conditions for student satisfaction in attending the school centre and his/her integration in a group of people. All the centres studied carry out activities aimed to promote the creation of groups and as courses advance, these activities are extended from tutorship to out-of-classroom activities (field trips, excursions, school yard games, etc.) in order to secure group cohesion.

All 10 school centres from the study have Welcome Programmes, which constitute the first implemented measure to foster group cohesion. The Welcome Programme includes, at pre-school level, interviews with family members designed to know more about the pupil, gradual incorporation of pupils in small groups and schedule flexibility during the 36

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first two weeks of the school year. In primary and secondary school, the main objective is the integration of pupils with special educational needs and pupils from different cultural backgrounds.

Some of the activities carried out to promote group cohesion, at primary school level, are the use of sociometric techniques and those that encourage self-awareness, awareness of others and knowledge of the world. There is also a transition programme in force, where sixth graders visit the secondary school in which they will enrol the following year.

At secondary school level, group cohesion has already been established, therefore the pupils’ objectives and interests are further explored in order to carry out activities such as the election of class delegates, creation of work teams, election of support students, classmates for complementary activities, mediators, etc. Once groups have been created, the schools strive to promote a sense of belonging and pride.

However, group cohesion should commence with the teaching staff, since in order to create a good school climate it is essential that teachers also consider themselves to be part of a common project. Some of the activities that benefit group cohesion among teachers are the following: breakfast meetings, gastronomic events, newsletters on educational issues, school lottery, etc.

2.2. Establishment and compliance of rules School centres are aware of the importance of rules, although there is no consensus about the pupils’ level of engagement in their formulation. Given their age, primary school pupils are not entrusted with decisions regarding rule establishment.

On the contrary, at secondary level, it is generally agreed that pupils should engage in the setting of rules. This activity should be carried out by the tutor from the beginning of the school year, with several sessions devoted to the task, and in coordination with the Chief of Studies and school counsellors.

The rules should be based on the Decree of Rights and Duties of Students2, focusing on classroom and out-of classroom behaviour, as well as organisational matters such as punctuality, school materials, schedules, etc. At primary school level, the rules should also refer to the use of materials, maintaining order and cleanliness.

Once the rules have been established, they must be made public by posting them on the classroom board, ensuring that they are taken as the basis for classroom behaviour throughout the school year. The rules should also be communicated to the families.

At the secondary level, a School Coexistence Committee (responsible for recording 37

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the set of rules established) or a Delegate Assembly (formed by one representative from each class) might be created, one that meets regularly with the chief of studies in order to review new incidences and provide suggestions to solve existing problems.

These initiatives could promote a change in pupils’ attitudes, leading them to regard correction as a natural event and not as unfair punishment. Student engagement in rule establishment and follow up processes increases compliance and accountability.

2.3. Values-based education All the analysed School Planning Documents include values-based education in their educational objectives and consider it to be a specific educational content. The school centres studied do not set a starting date for values-based work as they consider it to be a habitual task, although not programmed or systematic, but as part of the hidden curriculum, across all subjects.

In primary school, the activities of the values programme are organised by the tutor.

At secondary level, however, they are organised by the Tutorship Action Plan focusing on an interdisciplinary approach. Subjects such as Philosophy, Ethics, Social Sciences, History, Spanish Language, Religion and more recently, Education for Citizenship, deal with these matters more closely. Also, across all subjects, teachers should devise activities that promote the setting of certain values, by engaging pupils in complementary or extracurricular activities, delegates’ meetings, commemorations of anniversaries or special events, etc.

Contents should vary according to educational levels. In Primary school, activities should start from the personal sphere, working first with self-awareness and expression of emotions and subsequently, activities that highlight social aspects such as the development of social skills. At secondary level, the contents on values are extensive and diverse; hence current events may be used as a basis for these activities. Some common topics useful for this purpose are the following: Prevention of gender-based violence, respect for diversity (especially ethnic and cultural), environmental conservation, sexuality, drug abuse prevention, etc.

2.4. Socio-emotional skills At primary school level, socio-emotional skills must be addressed by the tutor, ideally with the entire class assembled. At secondary level, they should also be dealt with by the tutor, according to the Tutorship Action Plan. He/she is in charge of conducting the activities related to education in social and emotional skills. These contents can also be dealt with in the Ethics subject.

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School counsellors are to be involved in the development of socio-emotional skills at both educational levels. At primary school level, the contents should focus mainly on basic behaviour such as listening, respecting others’ turns when speaking, asking questions, etc. At secondary school level, the contents may vary according to the programme in use: Emotional education (emotional awareness, expression of feelings, emotional control), communicational skills (starting a conversation, group intervention, making a complaint, asking for a favour), empathy and assertiveness skills, etc.

2.5. Conflict regulation Primary school centres usually approach conflict in a concrete manner, intervening as soon as it occurs, but without a culture of education for conflict regulation. Therefore, it is useful to distinguish between educating pupils so that they intervene and manage their own conflicts, as a preventive measure, and intervening on a day-to-day basis when the conflict has already occurred.

At secondary level, conflict management should be included when teaching techniques that allow pupils to confront each other in a positive and non-violent manner.

The activities should be organised by tutors in coordination with the Counselling Department, which provides advice, support and execution of concrete programmes.

Teachers of Ethics, Integration Promotion or alternative subjects devised for students who object to Religion class also participate in some cases.

The contents may be programmed according to the coexistence diagnosis previously carried out in the centre, or by following a standard programme applied throughout the school year, whose efficacy has been proven in previous years. In general, contents should deal first with the idea of conflict, followed by its perception, how to identify conflictive situations, how to deal with feelings in situations of conflict, assertiveness, empathy and conflict resolution techniques.

Apart from educating pupils to acquire the ability to solve their own conflicts, school centres must have protocols to address specific instances of conflict.

Conflict regulation is understood as a common task involving families, school management and education institutions and administrations. School centres usually demand support staff specialised in dealing with disruptive individuals, or specialised staff to take charge of the coexistence classroom and teaching staff able to split some groups.

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3. Instrument for the assessment of coexistence in a multicultural educational centre Based on the components for best practices of school coexistence outlined above, a questionnaire3 has been devised for pupils to assess, from a three-fold perspective (as subject, agent and observer of certain behaviour), the frequency of certain situations, which either benefit school coexistence or create conflict and generate poor school climate.

A. IDENTIFICATION I am in class: I am a Boy

____________________

Girl

This is my first year in this school Yes

No

My cultural group is Muslim Evangelist

Hebrew Christian

Hindu Other (specify): _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

B. RELATIONSHIPS How many good friends do you have in class? Check only one answer None I have one good friend in my class I have 2 or 3 good friends in my class I have 4 or 5 good friends in my class I have more than 5 good friends in my class How many good friends do you have in school, apart from your class friends? Check only one answer None I have one good friend in my school I have 2 or 3 good friends in school I have 4 or 5 good friends in school I have more than 5 good friends in school

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C. CARE OF SCHOOL FACILITIES AND MATERIALS

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

Regarding the care of school materials, what usually happens in your school?

Desks, walls, toilets are painted Materials are properly treated as part of general behaviour Materials are worn out, but not vandalised Classroom materials, toilets, gym equipment are damaged The blackboard, walls, and/or toilets have offensive writings on them Garbage is thrown in the classroom, halls, corridors and school yard School property is respected Students’ property is respected School green areas are trampled on or pulled up School materials, exams, money is stolen Other (specify):

D. SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM COEXISTENCE How often do these situations occur in your school?

Teacher disobedience and disrespect Non-compliance of classroom behaviour rules Compliance of classroom behaviour rules Paying attention to the teachers’ explanations Interrupting, disturbing, disrupting class (clowning around, making noises, speaking in loud voices, etc.)

Obeying and respecting the teacher Respecting the schedule Teachers treating pupils correctly Pupils refusing to do an assignment Provoking, ridiculing or insulting teachers Being late for class Fathers or mothers who treat teachers correctly Going into/out of the classroom without permission Missing school often without justification Fights, disagreement and lack of collaboration among parents Fights, disagreement and lack of collaboration among teachers

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Fights, disagreement and lack of collaboration between parents and teachers Teachers working in teams Parents working in teams Parents and teachers working in teams Damaging a teacher’s car Teachers insulting or ridiculing pupils Fathers or mothers threatening and insulting teachers Attitudes of indifference in class

Very bad

Bad

Good

Very good

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

According to you, relations and communication with respect to the following members of your school are:

Among students With teachers With families

E. SUBJECT OF BEHAVIOUR How often have you been subject to this behaviour in school?

I have been hit, kicked, pushed I have been threatened, insulted, humiliated I have been threatened to do things I did not want to do (bring money, do their homework, give them my shoes, etc.)

Money or materials have been stolen from me or my things have been broken I am isolated and excluded from friend circles I have been helped to do my homework They spread lies or rumours about me; they try to stop others from hanging out with me I have been threatened with a weapon (sticks, knifes, etc.)

They have criticised my physical appearance or my cultural background I have been called names or laughed at for some reason Other (specify):

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Very often

Often

Never

Sometimes

Where have these situations occurred?

In the classroom In the halls or corridors During recess In the toilet Near school In the school bus /public transport Other (specify):

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

What do you usually do when this happens?

I cry I run away I try not to think about it I don’t do anything I ask them to leave me alone I ask my friends for help I ask an adult for help (teacher, principal, counsellor) I ask my parents and siblings for help I defend myself Other (specify): To which class does the person who misbehaves with you belong?

From my class Not my class, but my grade From a different class From a grade higher From a grade lower From a different grade Other people from school (teacher, janitor, cleaning staff) Another person not from school

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F. AUTHOR OF BEHAVIOUR

Very often

Often

Sometimes

Never

How often have you participated in this kind of behaviour in school?

Hitting, kicking, pushing someone Helping a classmate with school assignments Helping a classmate with personal problems Threatening, insulting, humiliating someone Forcing someone to do something he/she does not want to (give me their money, do my homework, give me their shoes, etc.)

Threatening someone with a weapon (knifes, sticks, etc.)

Objecting when someone displays negative attitudes towards others Stealing money or school materials or breaking someone’s belongings Criticising someone’s physical appearance or cultural background Teamwork Calling names or laughing at someone for some reason Ignoring a classmate, excluding him/her from my group of friends or completely isolating him/her Lying or spreading rumours about someone or trying to stop others from hanging out with him/her Other (specify):

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

In cases of negative behaviour, where did this type of conduct occur?

In the classroom In the halls or corridors During recess In the toilet Near school In the school bus /public transport Other (specify): To which class does the person who has been subjected to this behaviour belong?

From my class Not my class, but my grade

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From a different class From a grade higher From a grade lower From a different grade Other people from school (teacher, janitor, cleaning staff) Another person not from school

G. OBSERVER OF BEHAVIOUR

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

How often have you observed this kind of behaviour in school?

Hitting, kicking, pushing someone Helping a classmate with school assignments Helping a classmate with personal problems Threatening, insulting, humiliating someone Forcing someone to do something he/she does not want to (give me their money, do my homework, give me their shoes, etc.)

Threatening someone with a weapon (knifes, sticks, etc.)

Objecting when someone displays negative attitudes towards others Stealing money or school materials or breaking someone’s belongings Criticising someone’s physical appearance or cultural background Teamwork Calling names or laughing at someone for some reason Ignoring a classmate, excluding him/her from my group of friends or completely isolating him/her Lying or spreading rumours about someone or trying to stop others from hanging out with him/her Other (specify): In cases of negative behaviour, where did you observe this type of conduct?

In the classroom In the halls or corridors During recess In the toilet Near school In the school bus /public transport Other (specify):

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Very often

Often

Never

Sometimes

To which class does the person or group with this type of behaviour belong?

From my class Not my class, but my grade From a different class From a grade higher From a grade lower From a different grade Other people from school (teacher, janitor, cleaning staff) Another person not from school

H. SUPPORT

Very often

Often

Sometimes

Never

When you have a personal problem, whom do you approach?

I don’t have anyone to count on One or two classmates My class delegate or representative My older sibling/friend My tutor A teacher A member of the school management A member of the teaching staff My mother or father The school counsellor Other (specify)

I. SCHOOL INVOLVEMENT

Discussing the problem in order to reach an agreement Punishing pupils or groups of pupils (no recess, no field trip, lower marks, etc.)

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Very often

Often

Sometimes

Never

When there are coexistence conflicts in school, they are usually dealt with by

Sánchez Fernández, Gallardo Vigil & Ortiz Gómez • The evaluation of school coexistence in contexts of cultural diversity

Punishment (temporary expulsion from school) A reprimand Teacher advice The entire school community deals with the conflict (Counsellor, tutors, teachers, Chief of Studies and pupils) Dealing with the conflict on tutorship time Ignoring the problem and putting it behind Summoning parents Other (specify)

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

Never

Sometimes

Often

Very often

When important decisions are made in class or school, you…

Give your opinion directly to the teacher Give your opinion to your class delegate Give your opinion to your tutor Don’t say anything because you think you will not be listened to Don’t say anything because you do not care Your opinion is not asked Other (specify) Now we would like to know more about your involvement in school.

How often have these situations occurred?

You have run for class delegate You have participated in activities organised by your school You had an idea for an activity at your school or class and you have shared it with a teacher

J. EDUCATION FOR COEXISTENCE Has anyone explained to you the coexistence rules in your school?  Never  Sometimes  Often  Very often Have you had class discussions about your rights and duties as a student?  Never  Sometimes  Often  Very often

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Would you like to learn more about school coexistence?

 No  Yes

->

How would you like this training to be imparted?  As any other subject with marks and schedule  As an extracurricular activity without marking Who should teach this subject?    

School teachers Specialists not from the school and school teachers Only specialists not belonging to the school In activities along with parents and teachers

How do you feel about living in a multicultural city?  Very bad  Bad  Good  Very good

References Alanís, L. & Ruiz, J. (2006).Están llamando a la puerta. ¿Abrimos? Una propuesta para trabajar el racismo y la xenofobia desde la perspectiva intercultural en la ESO. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 150, 83-95.

Aula de Innovación Educativa, 132, junio de 2004 (dedica la sección de Innovación Educativa a la prevención de la violencia escolar).

Caballero, Mª. J. (2009). Convivencia escolar. Un estudio sobre buenas prácticas. Trabajo de Investigación Tutelada inédito, dirigido por A. Acosta & S. Sánchez. Granada: Instituto de la Paz y los Conflictos de la Universidad de Granada.

Colectivo Amani (2004). La escuela intercultural: regulación de conflictos en contextos multiculturales. Madrid: MEC y Los libros de la Catarata.

Colell, J. & Escudé, C. (2006a). ¡Vamos a llevarnos bien! Una propuesta para afrontar el maltrato entre alumnos (“bullying”) en primaria. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 151, 85-96.

Colell, J. & Escudé, C. (2006b). ¿Nos llevamos bien? Una propuesta para afrontar el maltrato entre alumnos en la ESO. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 152, 83-95.

Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 359, julio-agosto de 2006 (monográfico sobre “Convivencia en los centros”).

Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 361, octubre de 2006 (editorial y páginas de actualidad dedicadas 48

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a la convivencia escolar).

Del Rey, R. (2001). Violencia en las aulas. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, 41, 266- 267.

Heinemann, P. P. (1969). Apartheid. Liberal Debatt, 22(2), 3-14.

Martínez, J. B. (2005). Educación para la ciudadanía. Madrid: Morata.

MEC (2005). Plan para la promoción y la mejora de la convivencia. Madrid: MEC. Moreno, F. X. (2006). ¿Por qué los algunos alumnos destrozan las instalaciones escolares?

Aula de Innovación Educativa, 153-154, 64-67.

Muñoz, F. A. (Ed.) (2001). La paz imperfecta. Granada: Universidad de Granada.

Muñoz, F. A. (2008). La paz imperfecta ante un universo en conflicto, en La Paz Imperfecta. Retrieved on December 21, 2008, available at www.ugr.es/%7Eeirene/ Imperfecta.pdf.

Ortega, R. (Coord) (2000). Educar la convivencia para prevenir la violencia. Madrid: A. Machado Libros.

Puig, J. Mª (2004). Tres preguntas acerca de la educación para la ciudadanía. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 129, 39-42 Rubio, R. (2007). Prevenir para mejorar la convivencia. Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 364, 48-51.

Rué, J. (Coord.) (2006). Disfrutar o sufrir la escolaridad obligatoria. Barcelona: Octaedro.

Sánchez, S. (2009). Implicaciones educativas de la Paz Imperfecta. In F. A. Muñoz (Eds), La paz imperfecta. (2ª edición), actualmente en prensa.

Sánchez, S. & Mesa, Mª. C. (2002). Los relatos de convivencia como recurso didáctico.

Elaboración de materiales curriculares como estrategia para la prevención y modificación de estereotipos negativos en contextos multiculturales. Archidona (Málaga): Ediciones Aljibe.

Segura, M. (2005). ¿Son reeducables los menores violentos? Aula de Innovación Educativa, 145, 73-75.

Uruñuela, P.M. (2007). Convivencia y disrupción en las aulas. Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 364, 102-107.

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Notes 1 Such as the Decree 19 /2007, January 23, 2007, which sets forth measures for the promotion of a Culture of Peace and coexistence improvement at educational centres supported with public funds (Official Gazette of the Junta de Andalucía nº 25, February 2, 2007) 2 Decree 85/1999, dated April 6, 1999 and Amendments to the Decree in Decree 19/2007, dated January 23, 2007 3 This questionnaire is part of the research commissioned by the Dirección Provincial del Ministerio de Educación. The research team members are: Mª Carmen Mesa Franco, Sebastián Sánchez Fernández, Dolores Seijo Martínez, Inmaculada Alemany Arrebola, Ana María Fernández Bartolomé, Miguel Ángel Gallardo Vigil, Lucía Herrera Torres, Mª del Mar Ortiz Gómez y Gloria Rojas Ruiz.

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A case study on the tensions and challenges of shared schooling in Cyprus Michalinos Zembylas

Open University of Cyprus, Nicosia

Abstract This case study refers to the findings of a research investigation conducted at a shared secondary school in Cyprus—that is, a school which co-educates children coming from two conflicting ethnic communities on the island (that is, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots). The study focuses on teachers’, students’, and parents’ perspectives about the struggles to negotiate co-existence in this school. Drawing on a threemonth ethnographic research project, the findings provide insights into how teachers, students and parents from the two conflicting communities draw selectively from various discourses and practices on collective identity and ethnic conflict in Cyprus to support the pre-existing values and beliefs adopted from family and schooling. While most teachers choose to avoid contentious issues rather than exploring them in order to prevent possible conflicts, a few others push for clear inclusion and reconciliation pedagogies. Although these efforts are well-intentioned, it is argued that unless systemic structural changes are undertaken at this school the potential is to simply reinforce rather than weaken existing divisions.

This case study explores some of the tensions and challenges that are created at a shared secondary private school in divided Cyprus. At this particular school, GreekCypriot (GC) students (the majority) and Turkish-Cypriot (TC) students (the minority) have been educated together since September of 2003—the year in which there was a partial lift of restrictions in movement and in the checkpoints that still divide Cyprus into its north side (where TCs live) and its south side (where GCs live). Currently, every morning there are approximately 100 TC students (roughly 10 percent of this school’s population) who cross the dividing line from the northern part of Cyprus and go to the south side (where the school is located) to attend this secondary school and then return to their homes in the afternoon. An ethnographic study that has been conducted in this school during 2007-2008 highlights teachers’, students’ and parents’ perspectives about the struggles to negotiate co-existence in this school. The following incidents show some of the tensions and challenges arising from stereotyping and prejudice.

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Incidents of stereotyping and prejudice During a discussion in the context of a religious education class (only attended by GCs)1, Minas (GC) stated that he would never reconcile with his TC classmates due to the fact that his mother was a refugee:

I wake up everyday and I see the Turkish flag on the mountain and you tell me to reconcile with the Turks? How can I abandon these feelings at home when I see them here in my own school? My mother is a refugee. At home, she talks about the home she once had and lost because of them. Living with the Turks is impossible.

Minas’s tone of voice was quite intense and he was visibly upset. He referred to his TC classmates indiscriminately as “Turks” despite the subtle interventions from his teacher to make a distinction and refer to them as “Turkish Cypriots.”2 During recess time, one of the researchers interviewed Minas and some of his classmates. Minas mentioned that his family had frequent discussions at home about their lost home and property on the north side. He referred to a party he had organized in which he invited all his classmates except the two who were Turkish Cypriots. As he explained: “They [Turkish Cypriots] took my house once, do you think I will simply stand by and let them take this one too?” Interviewing other students, the research team discovered that some of Minas’s classmates had criticised him for his decision not to invite their Turkish-Cypriot classmates to his party, given that they celebrated their team’s victory (during school competitions)—a team which included these two TC students who, according to several comments made by students and teachers, had made a significant contribution.

Other observations also confirmed some of the stereotypical perceptions and prejudices that existed amongst GC and TC students at this school. The following two incidents occurred in English Literature classes. The students involved were 15-16 years of age. In the first incident, the teacher assigned a group activity to the students, asking them to work in pairs or groups of three, according to the way they were seated in class. George (GC) and Aylin (TC) sat next to each other. Throughout the duration of the 40-minute group activity the researcher observed that the two students did not exchange a single word or a single glance between them. Each of them took separate notes in their notebooks. On three different occasions, George turned to another GC classmate who was sitting behind him; they talked briefly and then George continued taking notes on his own. When the researcher interviewed the two students (separately) and asked them why they did not cooperate, George mentioned that he did not cooperate “with Turks”, and Aylin stated that “the GC pupils usually don’t want to cooperate with us.”

This unwillingness to cooperate was also confirmed by the teacher, who admitted that

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she faced serious reactions when she had attempted to encourage group work between GC and TC students.

In the second incident, the topic of the day referred to pensions and the existing provisions in Cyprus. When the teacher asked what the provisions were in the north side of Cyprus regarding this issue, Tasos (GC) replied: “How can we know miss? Those are the occupied territories.” The teacher repeated the question looking at Ceylan (TC). Ceylan began to mention some of the provisions, however, Tasos and Petros’s (GC) voices overshadowed her, saying: “This is so pathetic! They don’t even have taxis! They don’t have a culture!” A short disruption followed and the teacher went on with the lesson, ignoring the students’ comments.

Similar incidents indicating stereotypes and prejudices were narrated by several Turkish-Cypriot students interviewed by the research team.

The first year I was at this school, there was a girl who told me in public that “I don’t want to sit next to you, because you’re a TC”. So, ok it was a bit, you know, it made me feel upset, feel bad. (Ayse, 15-years old) Last year there was this guy. I used to enter the classroom saying to everyone “good morning”. He would always have this angry look when I said that. One day he swore back to me and I felt very bad. He said things in Greek so I didn’t understand, but my GC friends told me later not to talk to him again because he didn’t like TCs. I can’t tell you what he said.

It was very offensive. (Nadire, 14 years-old) On the other hand, two other TC students pointed out that not all GC students had prejudices against TCs:

Because there are racist Greek people who don’t want to be with TCs, we shouldn’t just say that we are not doing well with GCs. We are not doing well with most of them, but there are good ones too. Ones who are not racist. (Turan, 17 years-old) I feel very included by the GCs. I am very good at sports and my GC friends communicate with me because I play sports. I don’t have any problems with them. You cannot say that all GCs are racist; this would be a false generalization. (Mbeke, 17 years-old) The intergroup friendships mentioned did not come about only through participation in sports and other activities where students had common interests; our ethnographic study documented other instances in which students from the two communities came together to organize social events or go out for fun, and became close friends. Crosscommunity friendships existed, however, they were of a limited scope.

In general, the brief examples of this case study reveal the tensions and challenges 53

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encountered by teachers and students when they are essentially thrown into a situation in which they have to negotiate their co-existence with individuals coming from a conflicted community and with whom they have never had any contact before. As part of the negotiation of their co-existence, these students and teachers have to make certain concessions. These concessions have to do, for example, with tolerating the presence of the other (who is still considered an ‘enemy’), while the political problem in Cyprus remains unresolved. This mixing with the other happens largely without engaging in physical violence (although there have been some instances in which violence has taken place both in this school and in the wider society). A lot more concessions need to be made, however, if students and teachers in this school want to seriously address and overcome existing stereotypes and prejudices. The few examples described here show that there are openings—small, yet important—to build on the friendships created between students who come from the two conflicted communities.

References Constantinou, C. M. & Papadakis, Y. (2001). The cypriot state(s) in situ: cross-ethnic contact and the discourse of recognition. Global Society, 15(2), 125-148.

Morag. N. (2004). Cyprus and the clash of greek and turkish nationalisms. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 10, 595-624.

Papadakis, Y. (1998). Greek Cypriot narratives of history and collective identity: Nationalism as a contested process. American Ethnologist, 25(2), 149-165.

Vural, Y., & Rustemli, A. (2006). Identity fluctuations in the turkish cypriot community.

Mediterranean Politics, 11(3), 329-348.

Notes 1 The school follows the national curriculum for religious education of the Greek-Cypriot public schools and thus Turkish Cypriots are excluded from attending religious education classes.

2 Evidence from historical and ethnological studies as well as analysis of public discourses in Cyprus shows how identity perceptions in the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities have fluctuated throughout the last two hundred years. While there are members of the two groups employing Greek and Turk as their self-designations, there are others who want to promote a communal sense of Cypriotness that is free of Greek and Turkish nationalisms (see Constantinou & Papadakis, 2001; Morag, 2004; Papadakis, 1998; Vural & Rustemli, 2006). Similar self-identifications—i.e. emphasis on their Greekness or their Cypriotness—were found in the discourses of Greek-Cypriot students in this school; on the contrary, the majority of Turkish-Cypriot students with whom we talked to emphasized their ‘Cypriotness’ rather than their Turkishness.

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The role of community art projects within and without the school curriculum Ineke Braak – van Kasteel

Music in Me Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract In this paper I will describe four separate Community Art projects. The projects were run in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The book Kunst in de Wereld (Art in the World) is a collection of essays describing various projects all over the world. The four projects under discussion were chosen because of their universal appeal and applicability. In addition, these projects offer a good starting point for modules in the curricula for the courses in Community Art. I have made use of reports, websites and publications of the various organisations involved, which I hereby gratefully acknowledge. Biographies of the leaders of the projects have been added as footnotes. A number of relevant website links and you-tube video’s together with a list of references concludes the article.

In this, my contribution to part IV of Multiculturalism and Managing Diversity in Europe (a handbook for intercultural education and communication), I should like to discuss four examples of good practice.

Community Art Projects are bridges; a bridge between learning opportunities within and without school; a bridge between school-culture and family-culture; a bridge between home and the world outside.

The Community Art Projects all have the same goal: to bring art, its passion and intensity, into the community and the daily lives of people who hitherto have had no experience, no exposure to art at all.

This is a very broad statement, based on the often quoted, most basic definition of Community Art: Community Art is art created with, for and by the community in cooperation with one or more artists.

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All Community Artists have in common that their art is created, born and developed within a community where people are created, born and growing up in conditions of stress because of intercultural differences, poor grassroots communication and increasing intolerance (Europe). Community Artists and their art promote social cohesion – which is why these artists are so exceptional.

There are places in the world, like Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian communities in the Middle East, where political decisions and religious differences – which may or may not have their roots in history – have so polarised the population that there are serious security issues, large groups living in abject poverty and many people who have no opportunity to live independent and fulfilling lives. In these areas, Community Art should not be just a stimulus for social cohesion, but should also initiate and create opportunities, such as jobs in the cultural sector with possible spin-offs to other areas.

In the developing countries in Africa we find extreme poverty, poor public health, often the threat of war or war-like violence and large groups of displaced persons and refugees. We see evidence that Community Art Projects help these people to get a grip on their lives again. The same applies to the favelas in Latin America where the children live in permanent danger due to the prevalence of poverty and crime. A characteristic of Community Art Projects is that they are all tailor-made to accommodate the culture and circumstance of each individual location.

I have chosen these particular projects because each of these can be used as a blueprint for projects outside The Netherlands, because the participating Community Artists occupy a special and particular position within the Community Art organisation in this country and also because all four projects were developed in close co-operation with educators.

“Hand in Hand” and “Kunst in de Wereld” (Art in the World) were both the result of projects by the Community Arts divisions of the Codarts Conservatoire of the Rotterdam University for the Arts, and the ArtEz University of the Arts in Arnhem, Enschede and Zwolle.

“Jij en je Wijk” (You and your quarter) was developed by IJsterk – a community welfare project of the city of Amsterdam together with the Education Faculty of the Amsterdam branch of University InHolland.

“Jalan Jalan” resulted in extensive publications. The project was carried out by ACCU, a community arts foundation together with Kunstenaars en Co. (artists & co) in cooperation with the Department of Citizenship and Cultural Dynamics at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (University of Applied Sciences).

An other similarity between de projects is that each was integrated into an academic 56

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research project – in the case of Jalan Jalan and Hand in Hand the research was into community art, city development and integration, for Jij en je Wijk the research was into citizenship and for the book Kunst in de Wereld there was participatory research in the form of essays and reports of experiences by various Community Artists linked to internet searches of people, organisations and websites.

However, the most important similarity is that all participating Community Artists work within their dream, their passion. This is what makes them great, happy and free. Their freedom is the result of their talent, creativity, entrepreneurship and workmanship. They know that each and every person has some degree of talent, creativity and entrepreneurship. The Community Artist knows how to find and stimulate these sometimes hidden talents and from them create something unexpected and worthwhile.

Finally, I should like to mention one more example of “good practice” – “Heartbeat Senegal”.

In May 2006, three students studying to be Instructors of Music at the University InHolland started to work on their dream: organising music lessons at a village school in Senegal. In May 2007 they, together with four other student of their year, travelled to Senegal to establish their first “culture class”. They returned to the country every subsequent year, each time taking other students. After their graduation they continued their project. In 2010 they will establish their fifth “culture class”. They are hoping to get participation from students of other Schools of Music. Their dream has come true.

By the end of 2009, the foundation Music in Me hopes to have collected sufficient funds to start five new projects in Syria during 2010. Music will become part of the standard curriculum at five primary schools in various camps for Palestinian refugees.

Linked to these schools, community centres will be established where music will be of great importance. Because the projects discussed were all community based, the expertise gleaned from them will be of great help in developing similar projects in the future.

The projects in the context of community based projects.

In this country there are some one hundred disadvantaged neighbourhoods where people find it difficult to improve their situation. The Ministry of VROM (housing, planning and the environment) has instituted various projects where, together with the community, an effort is made to improve liveability in these areas. Forty of these neighbourhoods have been identified as being in the most urgent need. Priorities are improving housing, job opportunities, education, integration and security. Many of the Community Art projects in these neighbourhoods receive support from the Oranje 57

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Fonds (Orange Fund), established in 2002 on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima. The fund was established to support social cohesion and participation and is the largest of its kind in this country.

One of the areas in Amsterdam to be identified as one of the target areas is the Indische Buurt (East-India quarter). This fairly small and densely populated area is the oldest part of the borough Zeeburg. The population of the quarter is ethnically mixed with a high proportion of immigrants. It is estimated that 100 different languages are spoken in the quarter. The rate of unemployment is high, around 20 percent and family income below average.

“Jalan Jalan” is the Community Arts project which was developed through close cooperation between Stichting ACCU, Kunstenaars & Co and Studio-K, the local community and local artists, all supported by extra subsidies from a number of other sources.

Every year another theme is chosen. The first, in 2008, was “meet your neighbour with art and culture” The independent research organisation TNO has done a study into the effectiveness of the 2008 Jalan Jalan. The question to be answered was: Have the community art activities resulted in more frequent inter-ethnic contact between people in the neighbourhood, who previously had no or little interaction with neighbours of different ethnicity. The result of the research was positive. It was shown that there is a need for longer term activities and an appropriate program has been developed.

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The 2009 theme for Jalan Jalan was “Zeeburgers”, literally “burghers of the sea” but also “inhabitants of Zeeburg”. All sorts of “sea-things”, from sharks to mermaids, submarines to octopuses, were depicted with fantasy and imagination. Through this theme, the power and beauty was shown of all those different people from all those different cultures who live and work in the same quarter.

The Indonesian word Jalan Jalan means: walking through the streets.

On September 12th, 2009, an Iftar was organised in the East-India quarter. The Iftar is the meal eaten by observing Muslims after sundown during the month of Ramadan.

The fast is broken according to tradition and then the meal follows. How the Iftar is organised and what is eaten depends very much on the particular Muslim culture. In Indonesia the Iftar is announced by the sound of the beduk drum, in Pakistan there are special Iftar bells. The meal is eaten with family and friends and generally lasts a long time as it is unwise to eat too quickly on an empty stomach.

Therefore, the procession Jalan Jalan is the sign to break the ramadan fast, then follows the community Iftar. The Iftar, which is free, is prepared by people in the community belonging to a variety of Muslim cultures. There is an open air stage where a program is presented by local amateur and professional artists and by community groups of all ages, colours and activities. Of prime importance is the year-long program to prepare for the Jalan Jalan festival through activities in schools, community centres, cultural centres and clubs. An example is the Pearl d’Amour, an playground opera for primary school pupils.

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The co-ordination for Jalan Jalan is done by the ACCU Foundation, its artistic manager Jos Zandvliet and business manager Septimia Kuhlmann1.

The other Amsterdam project is “Jij en je Wijk” (you and your quarter).

This project enables teachers, school and community workers to engage pupils directly with the environment in which they live. The project is designed for 11 – 14 year olds and aims to stimulate, challenge and involve. It encourages children to consider their world seriously and responsibly, to talk about it and to encourage a dialogue at a time in their lives when they learn to be more independent.

The pervasive theme of the project You and your Quarter is citizenship. Learning about citizenship provides the basic knowledge, aptitude and attitude necessary to play an active role in society. The mission of the project is to give practical form and content to the rather abstract notion of citizenship. The young participants get offered the means

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and the opportunities to research, express and communicate what citizenship means to them and to their neighbourhood.

Having chosen a subject, the group takes part in a workshop Journalism, Writing and Photography. With their Press card they then each go out into their quarter and write their article. After that they post these, together with the photographs they took, on the project website. An interesting requirement is that the articles must be linked to Google Maps.

Also, there are links with free door-to-door newspapers. This means that the community does not just read about itself but also learns something about the views of the youngsters. A dialogue ensues and strengthens the social cohesion in the quarter.

The mission of You and your Quarter is as follows:

• Get to know other people and your quarter; visit places where teenagers would normally never go.

• Acquire journalistic skills; learn to work on a website and with Google Maps.

• Bring the community into the school and vice versa: improve social cohesion in the community • Acquire citizenship skills in the areas of democracy, participation and identity.

• Teach co-operation by allowing teenagers to participate in the community; improve the teenage self-confidence and sense of pride.

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The project You and your Quarter was developed by the unit “Community and School” of the social services division IJsterk, the municipality of Amsterdam in conjunction with Jeroen Bottema 2 of the School of Education of InHolland Unversity and with Waag Society, a foundation for research into creative technology for social innovation.

“Hand in Hand”, the third neighbourhood Community Art project is located in the south of Rotterdam in the target areas Oud Zuid en Vreewijk. These areas overlap two adjoining Rotterdam boroughs, Charlois and Feijenoord. The target area Vreewijk is entirely part of Feijenoord, while Oud Zuid comprises seven quarters of which three are part of Charlois (Tarwewijk, Oud Charlois and Carnisse) and four are part of Feijenoord (Afrikaanderwijk, Bloemhof, Hillesluis and Katendrecht).

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Traditionally, the area was inhabited by dockworkers. Most of the homes are small, cheap, badly insulated pre-war rental houses. Bloemhof, Tarwewijk and Hillesluis together have 35,700 inhabitants. In the first two quarters the often multi-storey homes are packed closely together and there is little greenery.

Out of all the inhabitants of Feijenoord, the people of Bloemhof are least content with their quarter and complain most about insecurity. The current inhabitants of these target areas are generally young, unemployed, not highly educated and with low earning potential. Many live on benefit. There are, in general, no decent houses to be found in these areas that could be bought by people with a higher income. These therefore usually move away, also because of the poor shopping and other facilities in the areas.

This has put further pressure on small businesses with the resulting boarding up of shops and vandalism.

The south of Rotterdam is easily accessibly both by car and public transport. It also has a good supply of business premises at relatively low rents. There are some important attractions, such as Ahoy (conferences and events), Zuidplein (shopping mall), the Feyenoord football stadium, Now & Wow (party centre), Kop van Zuid (urban renewal project) and, since late 2007, the ss Rotterdam. All of these attract many visitors and publicity, generate cash flow and improve the image and attractiveness of the south of the city.

Vreewijk has 7000 homes of which 80% belong to housing corporations. Most homes are old single family dwellings and three quarters was built before WWII. More than 14,000 people live in the area. About 70% are of Dutch descent. This is far above the Rotterdam average of 54%.

People from Surinam (formerly Dutch Guyana) form a relatively large proportion of the immigrant population. As to age distribution, the group 23 – 39 year olds is heavily under represented. There is, however, an exceptionally large proportion of seniors. In the age group 65 and over, 90% of the population is of Dutch descent.

In 2008 the quarter of Feyenoord – and its footballclub – celebrated its first centennial.

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To celebrate this centennial, Peter van den Hurk3, leader of the Rotterdam Wijktheater devised a plan to create a show about the ups and downs of this legendary, world-famous football club and its faithful supporters. To produce the show he got together with the conservatoire and dance academy of Codarts University for the Arts, the International Community Arts Festival and Theatre Zuidplein.

The football club plays an important part in the lives of many families. Each match is eagerly awaited. Emotions run high: exuberant joy when the club wins and black sorrow when it loses. But, whatever happens, the Legion, as the supporters are called, always stand behind their club. In good times and bad. Their bedrock is the supporters’ song “Hand in hand, kameraden” (join hands, mates). The context is formed by life in the quarter.

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The shows are produced in close co-operation with the actors, who are all local.

Helped by professional writers and stage directors, the local people show their own experiences in the performances. The result was the soaring Community Art production “Hand in Hand”. A show full of music, dance and theatre. There were ten performances of the show in the Zuidplein Theatre, the home of the Rotterdam Wijktheater company (RWT) The Rotterdams Wijktheater (Rotterdam Community-based Theatre) is a theatre company that, supported by Rotterdam City Council, produces theatre for and by people from the community. The main aim of this community arts organisation is to develop new writing, accessible, appealing and relevant to people who do not normally go to the theatre. In order to invite new and culturally excluded audiences they present theatre performances that are based on the stories of their own community, and therefore dealing with issues that are relevant to those groups. By the sheer amount of new work they develop, the more than 60, usually packed, shows that are performed in the various community centres and the string of new projects in the pipeline, The Rotterdam Wijktheater is living proof that theatre by and for local people can be relevant, interesting, moving and entertaining.

Some characteristics: RWT does not present the community with an existing play, but develops plays based on stories and events told them by the local people.

All actors are drawn from the community - the people of RWT only facilitate, coach, direct, and provide technical back-up and assistance.

RWT works primarily in disadvantaged neighbourhoods with people who have little or no experience of theatre, either as performers or audience.

The plays tend not to focus on big issues like ‘teenage pregnancy’ or ‘child abuse’ but rather reflect life in the neighbourhood, with all the laughter and sorrow that that entails. Depending on the ages within and the cultural diversity of the group they work with, other disciplines such as dance, music or video may be incorporated.

The Rotterdams Wijktheater is working on establishing an international network of people or theatre groups with a similar approach. They are specifically looking for initiatives that not necessarily have theatre as their primary medium but have a similar methodology i.e. not the “distribution of the high arts” to the communities nor the sociodrama methods popular in the 1960’s and 70’s.

The Rotterdams Wijktheater is funded by a small group of professional writers and directors. They register experiences from improvisations by local people and transform these stories into a stage-play to be performed by people from the community. The ‘actors’ come up with universal themes like fear, loneliness, drugs, the increase of 65

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violence, newcomers in the community, parent and child, upbringing and education, discrimination and racism, tolerance and togetherness which, through improvisation, produces material for the script.

The RWT has no regular company of actors. For each performance the cast is formed by non-professional actors from the neighbourhood where the play is based, written and rehearsed. The local people joining the production usually have no connection with theatre whatsoever and usually have never been on stage before. This means that a lot of work and effort is required for a long and very intense production process, which consists of two important phases. The pre-production phase consists of improvisation and discussion, which is such an important source of material reflecting life in the community. It is this material that forms the body of the script. The production phase consists of the rehearsals and the technical production of the play. In both phases the actors from the community are the engine driving the process. They are an irreplaceable source of inspiration.

RWT does most of its work within the communities they address. Rehearsals and performances are held outside the main stream Rotterdam theatre world. Instead these take place in community arts centres, community centers, youth clubs and schools. In their small van RWT goes all over Rotterdam, more often than not having to move pool tables and pinball machines to rig up a working theatre with lights, follow-spots and slide projectors, perhaps a dance floor, black-out curtains, and improvised dressing rooms. The Rotterdams Wijktheater has worked in the different boroughs of Rotterdam since 1992.

The last project in conjunction with a university is the book Kunst in de Wereld (Art in the World) by Merlijn Twaalfhoven.4

In his book, this composer and theatre maker proposes that art should be shown 66

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outside the theatre and without a pedestal. He maintains that art could have a much larger impact when taken outside the usual boundaries: into the countryside, into towns, amongst people. Art, in other words, that anybody can encounter anywhere: Community Art. The first chapter deals with how to look at things, how to consider art in its space, art in its context and the sensory impact that art can give. All of this is richly illustrated with many colour photographs. The content of this chapter would fit very nicely into a textbook on ‘how to look at art’.

The other essays in the book give many practical tips to young artists, theatre makers and musicians. Where to create something? How to present your ideas? Co-operation with other participants, rehearsals, etcetera. There is also an appendix with a list of useful websites. It is a very practical book with tips generated by all sorts of community arts projects but principally reflecting his own experiences. It does not want to give a method or instructions, it is a prop (or a prod) for all people who make art and who like to think and reflect. It is therefore aimed at all people who, like Merlijn, feel that art is more than entertainment for the serious and the solemn, and at the growing group of artists convinced that a concert hall, theatre or gallery is not always the place best suited to create an extraordinary experience.

Merlijn himself literally creates Art in the World – apart from his projects in the Netherlands, he worked in Central Europe, Cyprus and, especially lately, in the Middle East.

One of his projects, “Symphony for All” (2008), was an orchestra with musicians aged 67

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between ten and fifty who came from Jordan, Palestine, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Egypt and Germany and performed in the King Hussein Cultural Centre in the Jordanian capital city of Amman. The music was composed by Merlijn Twaalfhoven, and included existing Arab songs but also melodies resulting from intensive collaboration between the composer and Arab musicians and singers during the compositional process. Refugee children, who had never played in a concert before, were given preparatory workshops and so played a substantial part in the actual performance. The audience was extremely moved and reacted very enthusiastically. After the show, Merlijn received many positive reactions from the musicians, children and audience alike. This experience is being incorporated into new initiatives and future projects, intended to continue creating music projects that bring contrasting cultures together.

Merlijn Twaalfhoven’s latest project in the Al Quds Underground Festival Jerusalem.

It is a festival that takes place in the evening in sitting rooms and secret locations in East-Jerusalem. In 2009 the UN organisation UNESCO has declared Jerusalem as cultural capital of the Arab world. However, in East-Jerusalem this is barely noticeable.

The Israeli police have forbidden or cancelled all cultural activities. There is more information on the website.

And then finally Heartbeat Senegal, the “dream” project of three students at the conservatoire, Ryanne van Sabben, Fleur Kamphuijs en Chris Mul5. Although this is not really a community arts project the students did, in preparation, contribute to a project of Merlijn Twaalfhoven and took part in workshops given by Jos Zandvliet. The emphasis of their study project was on cultural entrepreneurship in the context of their future profession as music teacher within and without the education system. The course was 68

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geared towards the pupils of the school and not towards involving the community.

How did it happen?

At the end of their first year, the students were asked to write down their dream. By total co-incidence, it turned out that three students had the same dream. They teamed up, integrated their dreams and started to explore possibilities. At that time they could not fathom that, two years hence, they would have established a Foundation and would be off to Senegal for the second time to teach music at their very own “school of culture”.

But that is what happened. They raised funds to build their school. What they wanted to do was to make musicians out of street children and “on the side” also teach them some reading and writing. One year later the school had been built and thirty children had registered. The first week the students were there they opened the school, taught the children and trained teachers who would keep the school going. After their return to Holland they stayed in touch regularly.

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The next school year they did more fundraising and established a second school.

Money was also collected to pay for instruments and furniture. Our students were now in their third year and they took second year students with them to Senegal to let them share in their dream. While in Holland, the students prepare courses in music, dance and drama. Most of the time, African instruments are used, but the 4 – 18 year old Senegalese pupils are also introduced to western instruments.

In 2009 the third and fourth culture school was established. Number five will follow in 2010.

Finally.

As explained in the introduction, the experiences of all projects described should prove extremely useful in the development of curricula for Community Arts courses; curricula that will not only focus on artistic development and entrepreneurship, but

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place major emphasis on developing social, political, economic and communications skills. A curriculum “Community Arts” will have to be developed from the performance productions and follow a set of generally applicable criteria, the most important always being that each project should be “with, for and by the members of the local community, in their own environment”.

Websites and links Het oranjefonds: (http://www.oranjefonds.nl) Lektoraten Community Art: Community Art at Codarts, Rotterdam (http://www.codarts. nl) PopKunst, ArtEZ, Institute of the Arts, Arnhem, Enschede en Zwolle (http://www.artez. nl) Community Art Projects: Jalan Jalan: http://www.jalan-jalan.nl Jalan Jalan - Stichting ACCU: http://www.stichtingaccu.nl Jalan Jalan: http://www.youtube.com/bekijkACCU#p/a Jalan Jalan – Parel d’Amour, a playground opera for primary schools: http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=GS4mvP6xWhY Jalan Jalan - Jos Zandvliet: http://www.joszandvliet.nl/tekst onder.html Jos Zandvliet: http://vredevanutrecht.com/community-art/2007/02/07/teatro-pasmi/ Jalan Jalan – Kunstenaars & Co: http://www.kunstenaarsenco.nl Jij en je Wijk: http://www.googledearth-blog.nl/category/maatschappijleer/ Jij en je Wijk: http://www.jijenjewijk.nl Jij en je Wijk – IJsterk: http://www.ajp.ijsterk.nl/film.php?item=106 Jij en je Wijk – InHolland: http://www.inholland.nl Jij en je Wijk – Waag Society: http://www.waag.org/project/jijenjewijk Hand in Hand – Rotterdams wijktheater: http://www.rotterdamswijktheater.nl/ voorstelling/hand_in_hand/18 Hand in Hand – the start: http://www.rotterdamswijktheater.nl/pagina/video/6 Hand

in

Hand

–

dancer

aged

80:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U-

njdfNys8&feature=channel Hand in Hand – on the news: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZGUu5siwc4&featu re=channel

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Spint – 110 jaar Feyenoord: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDRD_gVUtDE Kunst in de Wereld – Merlijn Twaalfhoven: http://www.musicforgaza.net/Music-forGaza/nl-NL/summary+in+english.aspx Kunst

in

de

Wereld

–

Merlijn

Twaalfhoven:

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=c6sGLwcjL2o Kunst in de wereld – PopArt: http://Awww.popkunst.nl/pages_EN/home.php Merlijn Twaalfhoven – A strange composer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rANsK LSGPNM&feature=related Merlijn Twaalfhoven - Megafonie by Merlijn Twaalfhoven- composition for 200 participants http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmcryY8g5xE&NR=1 Merlijn Twaalfhoven - Carried by the Wind (Palestinian West Bank music doco) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=008p-_LePrg Merlijn Twaalfhoven – Symphonie for all in Amman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WN4hnEuzsc Merlijn Twaalfhoven – Symphony Arabica - http://www.arabica.nu/ Merlijn Twaalfhoven – Al Quds Underground-festival in Jeruzalem - http://www. alqudsunderground.net/2009/10/welcome-to-al-quds-underground.html Merlijn Twaalfhoven - Composing the audience - http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sso66ykkr-4&videos=z2wxG4T69wM&playnext_from=TL&playnext=1 Stichting Heartbeat - http://www.stichting-heartbeat.nl Stichting Heartbeat - http://www.stichting-heartbeat.nl/foto%27Stichting-Heartbeat. htm Stichting

Heartbeat

–

benefit

concert

2007:

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=msv8WexHf-g&feature=player_embedded#

References Bottema, J. (2007). Jij en je Wijk. Amsterdam: Project Department of Education, University InHolland, section Man and Society.

Brouwer, P. (2008). Effectiveness Jalan Jalan. Research report. Hoofddorp: TNO Kwaliteit van Leven.

Burghoorn, A. (2009). Twaalfhoven legt verborgen cultuur bloot in Jeruzalem [Twaalfhoven uncovers hidden culture in Jerusalem], Volkskrant.

Erven, E. & den Hurk, P. (2006). Community Arts – Kunst en Kunde: report and reflections on 72

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a meeting of experts. Rotterdam: Lectoraat Community Arts, Codarts, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.

Jalan Jalan (2008). Artists and neighbours working toward a better community. Amsterdam: Kunstenaars & Co. Veenen, A. & Hurk, P. (2008). Geen mooier woord dan Feyenoord (no word more beautiful than Feijenoord)– Case study of community art production “Hand in Hand”.

Rotterdam: Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Lectoraat Community Arts, Codarts.

Vroonhof , A. (2008). HeartBeat. Journal for Art and Culture in Education, 7(12), 32-34.

Kamphuijs, F., Mull, C. & Sabben, R. (2007). Projectplan 2007 Foundation HeartBeat.

Alkmaar, Hol.: Conservatoire University.

Trienekens, S. J. (2009). Art at the heart of society – about citizenship and cultural dynamics.

Amsterdam: University of Applied Sciences, Chair Active Citizenship.

Twaalfhoven, M. (2009). Kunst in de Wereld. Chair PopKunst. Arnhem: ArtEZ Press.

Notes 1 Jos Zandvliet – Always the driving force, uniquely creative, artistic jack-of-all-trades, inexhaustible and always enthusiastic. He worked with the Dogtroep theatre company for 30 years as an actor, visual artist, musician, composer, scriptwriter, artistic director and inspirer. Jos is one of the founders of ACCU. Septimia Kuhlmann – effortlessly combines artistic, organisational and commercial skills, reaches for the sky but firmly grounded. She worked with Dogtroep for 15 years as an actor, originator of concepts for performances and acts, as a visual artist and musician and location manager for countless productions. Septimia is one of the founders of ACCU. 2 Jeroen Bottema is a teacher trainer and researcher at the Centre of eLearning of InHolland University of Applied Science, Amsterdam. He is also the founder of Bodie Educatief Ontwerp, a consultancy in ICT & innovation for education where he promoted ICT integration in education. He is the author of : Geld verdienen op Marktplaats en eBay (2005) (making money on Marktplaats and eBay), a publication in the series Computer Idea.

3 Peter van den Hurk (1945) graduated in 1970 from the Theatre School Maastricht. He then worked as a director for, amongst others, La Mama Theatre in New York and the Groot Limburg Toneel in Maastricht. In 1972 he as one of the founders of GL2, a theatre company that wanted to reach a new public. From 1980 to 1992 he taught at the Arnhem Academy of Art. From here he initiated my community based projects. In 1992 he was one of the founders of the Rotterdams Wijktheater (RWT), a group that has become internationally known for its innovating theatre projects in working class areas in Rotterdam. From 2001 he also organizes bi-annual international community theatre festivals. These are the basis for various books on community theatre that he edited. In 2005 he was appointed to the chair for Community Art at Codarts University for the Arts in Rotterdam. He also still works as the artistic director of RWT. His credo is that a good community artist is someone who cannot just produce at an artistically high level, but who can also make this work accessible to people who do not, as a matter of course, have an interest in the arts. One of the goals of Van den Hurk’s professorship is to establish courses in community arts and eventually a curriculum for a course leading to a MA in Community Arts. Van den Hurk coauthored a handbook of improvisation theatre: “Dramatiseren - van idee tot voorstelling” (creating drama – from idea to performance).

4 Merlijn Twaalfhoven (Wapserveen, 14th February 1976) is a Dutch composer who is

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also active in the organisation of multi-disciplinary music events. His compositions have been performed internationally by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest, the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Flanders, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and many others. He is also involved with musicforgaza.net.

From 2005 – 2008 Merlijn taught at the ArtEZ Institute for the Arts. His research project PopKunst (PopArt) investigated how to bring the broader public into contact with contemporary art without making any concessions to artistic quality and integrity. Merlijn studied at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam, both the Viola as well as Composition with a particular interest in ethno-musicology and contemporary music with southern Indian techniques. His graduation project was an inter-active essay on Japanese esthetics entitled “De Veelte” (muchness).

5 Ryanne van Sabben, Fleur Kamphuijs and Chris Mul were students at the conservatoire of InHolland university from September 2005 to July 2009, when they graduated as music teachers.

Ryanne now works at a secondary school and also teaches the flute. Fleur works at the Centre for Art and Culture „Cool“. The centre contains a theatre and also gives courses in music and musicals, drama and the visual arts. It also develops multi-disciplinary projects that are performed at schools.

Chris works in education and also has her own company „De Zingende Serveersters“ (the singing waitresses). Five professional singers waitresses at receptions, business parties or festivals and perform their art in between the courses of the menu. For all of them, Heartbeat remains their passion.

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The Silwan Ta’azef music school in Silwan, East Jerusalem Danny Felsteiner

Music in Me and Madaa Community Center in Silwan, Jerusalem, Irsael

Abstract Music in Me is an international non-governmental organisation incorporated in the Netherlands funding projects in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Music in Me believes that music, having no borders, has the unique power to bring joy, alleviate trauma, stimulate self-confidence and foster mutual understanding.

The music school in the Mada’a Community Center in Silwan, East Jerusalem, is one of their projects.

Background of the project In October 2007, Silwan Ta’azef Music School opened its doors to the children of Silwan, an extremely crowded and poor Palestinian village in East Jerusalem. The village is situated in East Jerusalem, next to the old city walls. Its location next to the temple mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Wailing Wall) has put the village in a center of political strife, which has its negative repercussions on daily life in the village.

Since 1967, the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem live under Israeli rule. They hold special residency permits which do not allow them to vote for the Israeli Parliament, and which include restrictions on travel and residency. Although the residents pay taxes as all citizens of Israel, their needs and mainly their children’s needs are not provided for. In Silwan there are no playgrounds, no green parks, no public library, no cafes, no cinemas, no sport facilities or public clinics. The residents are not permitted to build or expand their homes, and many families await the demolition of their houses.

The unstable political situation has a devastating impact on the village. There are about 50,000 residents in Silwan, of which more than 50% are under 19. 75% of the children are estimated to live under the poverty line. The rates of crime, domestic violence, child abuse, drug use and school dropouts are alarmingly high. This, combined 75

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with the constant presence of armed guards and the Israeli military and police, creates difficult and stressful circumstances for the residents, especially for the children of Silwan.

The music school subsidizes the studies for children who come from poor families, and is supported by Music in Me, the Prelude Foundation and private donations.

The school offers two courses: 1 - Pre-instrumental, introductory year to music. A weekly lesson of 1½ hours, taught by two professional music educators, Danny Felsteiner and Fabienne van Eck, combined with guest teachers and performances.

2 - Studying an instrument in group lessons. Given by professional music teachers for each instrument.

All students younger than 10, must follow and successfully finish the first preinstrumental year, before pursuing an instrumental study. In the first year, the school offered only the pre-instrumental year. 30 children, age 6-12, mixed gender, participated, and were divided by age in three groups. The music lessons take place in Madaa Silwan Community Center, which was established concurrent to the opening of the music school.

The music lessons During the introductory music lessons the children learn the basic elements of music like pitch, rhythm and notation, and experienced playing a wide range of instruments from different instrument families, as well as singing alone and in groups (choir).

Next to the taught musical skills, the children also play social-oriented musical games, build their own instruments from different materials, listen to music from their culture and other cultures from all over the world, and prepare concerts in which they sing songs and play the instruments.

The year is divided in six blocks of music instruments: 1 - Percussion – tambourines, darbukas (tablah), bells, woodblocks, shakers, etc.

2 - Pitched Percussion – glockenspiel.

3 - Wind Instrument – recorders (with a presentation of the Arab nay and mijwez).

4 - Plucked Instrument – guitar.

5 - String Instrument – violin.

In October 2008, the children from the first year, as well as older children who displayed musical talent, chose an instrument they wanted to concentrate on and study exclusively in smaller groups during 2008. The group lessons were given by professional 76

Danny

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The

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ta’azef

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school

in

Silwan,

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Jerusalem

music teachers. The following instruments were taught in 2008: guitar, cello, oud, piano and darbuka.

Social influence of the project Since then, more than 65 children have registered to the different courses the school is offering, and the list of applications for the coming year is growing. The music school was the first activity to open in the Madaa Silwan Community Center. At first, parents were suspicious and reluctant to send their children to study music. In a society were children the age of 13, 14 start searching for jobs to compensate for the low income of their parents, music education seemed unnecessary.

However, soon parents showed up in the music school during lesson days, and expressed their gratitude. They claimed that they were surprised to see their children sing songs and practice instruments, and how much positive energy it has brought into their family lives.

In January 2009, the music school organized a concert in the village, to which more than 200 people came, parents and family members of the music school students. The children had the chance to perform and be proud of what they’d learned, and the parents could see their children on stage. Following the school examinations during February, parents reported that their children studied longer for the exams, and that their grades were improving. They were also happy that children stayed off the streets to practice music.

In 2008, the list of application was longer than in 2007, and the school accepted more than 30 children for the pre-instrumental year, and new students for the instrumental studies.

The music lessons contribute to social cohesion and have positive effects beyond the field of music. In November 2007, inspired by the opening of the music school, weekly art lessons started in the community center, where 20 children participated. Parents, women and men, showed interest in volunteering in the center and donating their time for the community. Soon, more activities followed such as language courses (Arabic, Hebrew and English, for women, men and children by groups), leadership training for adolescent girls, a traditional Silwani cooking project, an embroidery project, and books were collected to form the first library in Silwan, where mothers volunteered to read stories for children once a week. In spring 2009, the library opened its doors. In 2008, a swimming course was offered for men, and a new theatre group has started, taught by a professional actress from Bethlehem.

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In the summers of 2008 and 2009, the activities of the community center culminated to the Summer Games: 6 days full of activities for the children of Silwan. More than 300 children participated, and the teachers from the music and art school joined to offer many different activities for the children. The girls that followed the leadership training were appointed as group leaders, and many parents offered to volunteer in arranging the activities, cooking, transportation and more.

The people of Silwan claim that although the political situation makes it difficult to see a bright future for their children and families, the community center has been a beacon of light in the neighborhood, and that it definitely helps to empower the community, and to raise the sense of pride in and commitment for the village.

Involvement The Madaa Community Center is run by the Palestinian residents of Silwan, assisted

by Israeli and international volunteers. The music lessons are taught by Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals, and we had guest teachers from all over the world (USA, Pakistan, England, Holland, Brazil, and more).

For more information: www.musicinme.net www.madaasilwan.org

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A pathfinder project in Leicester: a case study in promoting community cohesion Clive Billighan

Children & Young People’s Service, Leicester City Council, United Kingdom

Abstract The case study describes a community cohesion project in education as part of the UK government Pathfinder programme. The project, based on the performing arts and a South African theatre group, Mighty Zulu Nation, involved 250 primary pupils from 8 schools in Leicester. National and local contexts explained and project plan, its implementation and outcomes are described.

The main focus is on the impact of the project on those involved, drawing on the perceptions of the teachers who coordinated the project in each school. The evaluation methodology is outlined and the impact on pupils regarding cultural diversity (attitudes, knowledge and skills) and their motivation and attainment exemplified. Parental attitudes and the effects on their knowledge and skills are also covered, as is the general impact of activities on local community relations. The case study concludes by reflecting on this model and the factors that led to successful outcomes.

In 2001 the British Government set up the Community Cohesion Review Team, chaired

by Ted Cantle, to investigate the circumstances that surrounded racial disturbances in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley that year and to look at “how national policies might be used to promote better community cohesion, based on shared values and a celebration of diversity” 1.

The review team found that “many communities operated on the basis of a series of parallel lives” and that local initiatives and programmes often reinforced a sense of separation and divisiveness. They saw schools as being central to breaking down barriers between young people and helping to create cohesive communities and proposed the creation of inter-school twinning between schools representing the principal cultures2.

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The pathfinder project One of the government’s responses to the Cantle Report was to set up local partnerships Community Cohesion Pathfinder Areas in 2003 to focus on strategies to address segregation. Leicester was chosen to be one of them because of its good track record in the area. Robert Vincent, of the School Development and Support Agency, and the author set up a school-twinning project, ‘Diversity and Cohesion through Theatre and E-Learning’ as education’s contribution.

This would appear to be needed at that time. 48% of Leicester’s school population were White British and 37% were of Asian origin and 38% schools had a white majority of more than 75% and 20% an Asian majority 3. Moreover, research in 2003 by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) had shown that BME (Black & minority ethnic) students felt “that there were few opportunities for contact with other groups, either through school, extra-curriculum or other activities” 4.

Mighty Zulu Nation We were fortunate to have had, Mighty Zulu Nation (MZN), a South African theatre group, working with Leicester schools. They had already worked in 45 local schools, doing workshops and performances with children.

The Pathfinder Project sought to build on work that had already been done by MZN and use their dynamic and dramatic approach to performing arts to bring together pupils from different ethnic and religious groups.

The structure Eight primary schools came into the project. Four were largely Asian (from 75% to 93% of pupils) and mainly Muslim (43-69%). Four were largely white (from 40% to 85% of pupils), with three mainly Christian (55%-93% of pupils) and one having 60% of pupils with no religion. One of these largely white schools also had 27% pupils from Caribbean and Caribbean/white backgrounds.

Schools were paired up with culturally dissimilar partners. The focus for twinning activities was on a selected ‘target’ group of thirty pupils from each school. Year 5s (10 year olds) were usually targeted so opportunities could exist over two years [primary school pupils leave for secondary school, at the end of year 6, aged 11] to develop their relationships. School co-ordinators (often teachers of these classes) were appointed and given two planning/professional development days and funding for replacement teachers

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for those days. A further funded day was provided to de-brief at the end of the project.

Implementing the programme MZN came into four of the paired schools for a day in late September/early October.

The whole school would be involved, along with thirty target group pupils from their partner school. MZN did a performance for everyone and then put on music, dance, story and art workshops for pupils for the rest of the day. Target group children from both schools worked in the afternoon movement/dance workshops. The whole day culminated in an after school show for parents, with children performing with MZN. This process was repeated in March at the second set of paired schools. This time there were thirty target group pupils from the first school who worked with their target group peers for the second time.

MZN then revisited one of the paired schools in April to work with the two target groups on their joint contribution to the finale Freedom Day performance. Then, at the end of the school day, they performed before parents from both schools.

Freedom day finale 240 target group pupils from the eight schools came together on 27th April at the African Caribbean Centre to celebrate ‘South Africa Freedom Day’: ten years of freedom for South Africa since the ending of apartheid. They rehearsed their pieces throughout the day, melding in their acts with those of MZN and the other schools. Some of the routines were based on South African themes reflecting the struggle against racism and others were based on elements from the children’s own communities, e.g. one multicultural routine combined stick (Asian) and Morris (English) dances. All 240 pupils joined for a glorious finale, to the acclaim of over two hundred parents and other guests.

The event was videoed and copies are to be sent to all the schools.

The impact All in all over 3000 pupils experienced seeing and working with MZN and 240 target group pupils had the more intensive community cohesion experience outlined above.

Over 500 parents were involved as audiences.

The project was evaluated by sending out evaluation questions. All 8 schools responded with written responses, largely from one or both of the project coordinators, with one school sending in responses from coordinators, the head and a teaching assistant (so all 81

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in all there were 11 sets of replies). These were collated and analysed by the writer.

The quality of the experience and the impact of the project on the children and parents are revealed below:

1. What are your perceptions of the impact the project had on pupils on pupils in terms of awareness and acceptance of cultural diversity?

All 11 respondents commented positively, e.g.: “The project has had a major impact on yr 5, particularly the target group. Prior to the project racist comments were not uncommon, particularly regarding dress e.g. turbans, veils etc. “

2. What are your perceptions of the impact the project had on pupils in terms of the development of knowledge and skills in this re cultural diversity?

All were positive about pupil knowledge and skills. 8 mentioned learning about South Africa, 5 the development of performing arts skills, 2 team work and inter-personal skills and 2 knowledge of other religions, 2 politics and ethics and 1 literacy skills, e.g.

“Recently able to discuss the concept of oppression in class.”

3. What difference do you think the project has made to pupil motivation and levels of attainment?

All were positive, e.g.: “Levels of behaviour improved and attainment and ‘doing one’s best’ improved.”

4. What evidence do you have to back up your perceptions relating to 1., 2. & 3?

All but one mentioned children’s observable behaviours (including academic work) and talk with and reports from children (some of which were written down by teachers).

Two also mentioned parental feedback, one mentioned a survey by questionnaire and one reported “little ‘concrete’ evidence”.

5. What are your perceptions of the impact the project had on parents in terms of their awareness and acceptance of cultural diversity?

Although 2 mentioned the reluctance on the part of some parents to support the project, all were positive, e.g.: “Racist comments were not uncommon from parents.

They would have been unwilling for the children to learn about other faiths. Since the project I have become aware of a greater tolerance. Parents visited the paired school for the Mighty Zulu performance and both sets of parents came together for four performances in all. This would have been unheard of several years ago. All parents were willing for their children to take part and were supportive all the way through.

It was useful discussing why we covered legs and arms when making costumes for the Muslim girls and the discussions enabled parents to think about these issues when they 82

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had never needed to in the past. “

6. What are your perceptions of the impact the project had on parents in terms of the development of their knowledge and skills in this area?

4 had no comments/found it too difficult to evaluate, 2 referred to 5 above to cover this one and 1 answered in a way that did not address the questions. 4 responses were positive: e.g.: “Many parents helped with their children’s investigative work on apartheid, helping them find internet sites, library books, maps etc. Some of our classroom assistants are also parents and their knowledge improved greatly as a result of working with their children. Parents helped make costumes and worked with helpers and parents at the partner school to order leggings, shorts etc. - This would have been unheard of several years ago. The easy communication between the two schools has had a hugely positive impact on our immediate local area. “

7. What evidence do you have to back up your perceptions re 5. & 6?

3 had no comments/found it too difficult to evaluate. Most cited conversations with parents and some the numbers participating and attending events: “Comments from parents who are classroom assistants who are also parents have been very positive. The project provided a means of communication with them which did not exist before. In other words, both communities were able to work together in a meaningful way sharing ideas, dialogue, practical work etc.”

8. What effect do you feel the project had on local community relations?

3 had no comments/found it too difficult to evaluate for the wider community and 1 thought it had had no effect. 7 were positive, e.g.: “Parents at A told Mr D that positive reactions from our parents made them feel more secure in local environment. I feel that our white parents developed a more tolerant attitude towards our African-Caribbean parents. Staging the performances at the African-Caribbean Centre and the sheer enjoyment of the whole project helped break down barriers. The African-Caribbean parents definitely developed more tolerant attitudes towards Asian parents.”

9. What evidence do you have to back up your perceptions here?

5 made no comments or said there was no evidence. 5 cited conversations with parents and parental behaviour (sharing lifts etc.), e.g.: “One parent told Mr H that both communities would not have visited each other’s schools so freely in years gone by and times had definitely changed.”

10. We would be interested to know about the role of interactions around the workshops and performance.

2 made no comment. The rest (9) were positive about a range of interactions and 83

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co-visits, e.g.: “In all of our waiting times at the African-Caribbean Centre all staff were gratified to see quite natural pairings of children between our partnered schools.”

11. We would be interested to know about the role of curriculum work around the project themes.

10 mentioned various aspects of curriculum development, especially around South Africa and Apartheid (6). Religious Education [RE], Information Communication Technology [ICT], Literacy, History and Persona/, Social & Health Education were the curriculum areas used for project-related work, e.g. “We used ICT time to investigate apartheid, building up files and then linked this work to further work on Black Heroes.

In RE we discussed other religions based on what we had learned at A: we also discussed ethical issues surrounding apartheid. In literacy we wrote letters of appreciation to MZN. The children reflected on their experiences of the project, e.g. role models, group work, self-esteem and wrote up their reflections in letters. At present we are working on literature of other cultures, Indian and African, and the children are much more open and enthusiastic to new cultures then would have been without the project. It was a welcome opportunity to work outside the curriculum in a way that reflected a whole child approach to music drama, literacy, history, ethics etc etc.”

Conclusions For schools, the project would seem to have productively linked their pupils, teachers and parents to others from different communities and enthused and motivated all participants. It also revealed a real thirst amongst pupils, teachers and parents for the performing arts and led to curriculum being developed to cover South Africa, apartheid and diversity. It also brought to the surface issues of racism and focussed schools on the need to do something about these.

Our Future These teacher quotes encapsulate the significance of the project:

“These young people are our future. B is a very closed community the people here are slow to accept and welcome ‘in-comers’. However, the MZN project has enabled our target group, at least, to become a part of the wider world and forge links outside their usual environment. “ “Discussion with the children has shown how much they have learnt: [one child said:] ‘Now I know that clothing may be different to mine, but I must still respect things that are different.’”

“This experience, I am sure, will live with these children always.”

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References Cantle, T. [et al.] (2001). Community cohesion: a report of the independent review team.

London: Home Office.

Ibid.

IDeA (2003). Taking forward community cohesion in Leicester improvement and development agency. London. Available at www.idea.gov.uk.

Leicester City Council (2004). Pupil level schools annual census (PLASC). Leicester City Council, Leicester.

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“Involving families from differing backgrounds in shared learning experiences: community cohesion on the doorstep:� a personal perspective Peter Driver

Director of the Bridge Junior School, Leicester, England

Abstract This article explores how two disparate schools came together to become a cohesive and supportive community despite many previous racial and cultural tensions. It then goes on to use lessons learned through this experience to engage parents from differing backgrounds into their children’s learning. Through focussing on life long learning and developing thinking and creative skills free and easily accessible learning experiences were shared with families. As well as addressing other issues this created a shared sense of belonging and gave access for all to learning and equal opportunities for all, including the most socio economically disadvantaged. It created a cohesive learning community on the doorstep.

Bridge Junior School, Leicester, serves a diverse community in a socio-economically deprived area. Housing is poor with much overcrowding. Less than ten percent of the adult population in the area have had further education post sixteen and child poverty indicators suggest levels of deprivation in the bottom ten percent nationally. (www. statistics.gov.uk)

There has been an established Indian Asian community in this part of Leicester, Highfields, since the early 1970s but it has been characterised by great flux and change both in terms of ethnicity and religion. The mainly Hindu and Sikh community, predominantly from the Gujarat and Punjab gave way to African Asian families. By the mid nineties there were mostly adherents of Islam: from African counties but Gujarati speakers. Those families who succeeded economically tended to move from the area to the outer city or its suburbs. Following the civil war in Somalia many Muslim Somalis found refuge in Leicester via stays in, particularly, Holland but also in Scandinavian 87

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countries, bringing with them many European languages. In recent years there have been a number of French speaking North African Muslims who have chosen to give up residence in France in order to wear Islamic dress in English schools. Currently 82% of the school population is from Islamic families; seventeen different languages are spoken and over forty counties of origin have been identified. The majority do not speak English within the family.

The school, with 360 pupils of 7-11 years range shares a campus with a similarly sized school: Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School. As a single faith school it takes its pupils from a wider catchment area. The two schools, however, share similar demographic and socio-economic features. Many of the white and afro-Caribbean families are working class and have been resident in the area for several generations.

There is a small Irish population which settled in the 1920s. More recently Portuguese Goans (an enclave in India) and Polish speakers have added to the ethnic and cultural mix.

With so many shared educational issues and challenges the school remained disparate and coexisted in mutual isolation. Underlying tensions pervaded every day life coming to the surface with the occasional racial comment or stone throwing incident. These were perpetrated by each side, literally over the fence that separated the schools. Each incident was dealt with but with no overview. This ceased to be the case when a group of about twenty children from each school decided to resolve a verbal confrontation by meeting at a nearby precinct area with bats taken from their respective sports stores.

The head teachers of each school intervened and immediately conceded that it was no longer time to sit on the fence.

There had to be a proactive commitment to bring the two school committees together.

This was a number of years before central government had considered community cohesion as being on the educational agenda. Bridge and Sacred Heart set out what the shared principles should be. The starting point was in agreeing that “neutrality was not an option”. Neither school had reference points either from academic literature or from experience except both head teachers had shared beliefs that social cohesion, as it was then referred to, should be rooted in social equality and respect for religious, cultural and ethnical differences. It was agreed that •

all participants would be equal partners

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any project undertaken would be designed to promote the understanding that would emphasise similarities while accepting differences

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give all participants a sense of belonging to the shared community

A number of initiatives were considered before almost accidentally becoming involved with the dance and drama group Mighty Zulu Nation, as part of the “Pathfinder” 88

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Any engagement in any form of competitive sport was considered a non starter; it was too early to have activities that would involve winning or losing and the status that gave to the former. There has to be a confrontation of stereotypes and no sense of tokenism. Initial contacts had to be managed and structures had to be sensitive to all needs, including a shared vision of possibilities.

Being involved with Mighty Zulu Nation came about during an overheard conversation when both head teachers were attending a local authority Islamic Awareness meeting.

Neither school had any form of cultural or ethnical ownership of the project; the power and creativity of the group’s performances transcended prior experiences and above all the appeal was universal. It immediately allayed stereotypes on both sides: Muslim children and boys can dance. Music and drama can transmit messages which are cohesive and spiritual without being grounded in any one religious tradition. Involvement with the group was the explosive catalyst which brought the two school communities together.

Just as vital was to discover the best way to proceed after the project. School Councils from each school met and joint visits were made to local places of interest. Children met and discussed religious customs and observances. Similarities between Christianity and Islam were discussed and explored. Presentations about Hinduism and Sikhism were given. Parents joined their children to go on picnics off site. Perhaps most telling were the twice monthly 20:20 club meetings for creative and cultural activities. This club was composed of twenty children from each school working on joint projects in art, music, drama and conservation.

Each session ended with parents being invited to a presentation and to share meals together. A real sense of unity developed.

The success achieved through the two schools coming together was continued into the long term. Not only are the two communities genuinely at ease together but acknowledge they are part of a shared future. This ease was not necessarily always felt within Bridge Junior School. There was nearly as much tension within the school as had been present between the schools prior to the cohesion projects. We learned that community cohesion should start from inside: the school community, then the community on the doorstep.

The school population remains quite static in terms of numbers but not in terms of personnel. About two out of three children spend their key stage 2 years (7 – 11) only at Bridge. Although some families have been resident for three generations others may move within a few months, being re-housed or finding more appropriate accommodation. In a ten week period on average eight families move into the school and the same number 89

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move out. There can be supervision of new arrivals, economic success and even of adherents of the same religion who practice different customs within different cultural backgrounds.

This had the potential to create cultural, ethnic and racial tensions. The lessons learned from a wider view of community cohesion were brought to focus on the micro level.

The common element amongst all community stakeholders is for children to have success in their education and have a positive view about themselves and their future.

Bridge Junior School promotes a particular emphasis on learning: it should be life-long, challenging, be based on personal ownership and above all, be skills based. In the 21st century pupils should be equipped with the literacy, numeracy and technical skills which will enable them to be “young citizens of conscience”. Having a shared home perspective makes this more achievable.

A number of key justifications were considered for the promotion of community cohesion. If there was not a shared sense of belonging there could be feelings of isolation.

If there was not equal access to learning for all there could be resentment. If diversity was not valued and acknowledged there could be bigotry. In all religious expressions there is spirituality, in being a citizen there are rights but only with responsibility. All these elements needed to be recognised and addressed through working in partnerships between school and families.

Each learning day begins with a focus on thinking skills. Children are presented with open ended challenges to encourage Thinking It Over. (There is an in-house cartoon character called Tio). They can enter their class twenty minutes before the start of school day and engage with Tio. The majority of children choose to take this opportunity. This leads to a calm and thoughtful prelude to the day. It promotes a readiness to learn as well as placing personal learning and enquiry at the forefront of provision.

The whole notion of thinking and life-long learning skills was presented to parents, 80% of whom attend twice each term “School Matters” meetings, and the overwhelming response was “how?” From parents asking questions the school developed its “Families In Thinking”: FIT 2 Learn programme. The purpose of which was to give both children and parents access to learning opportunities so that all could share the same experience and value of learning. This appealed to all parents and immediately brought them into context with groups they would not normally communicate with.

A definition of learning: if learning is what is left from an experience, children need more experiences. This became a mantra for provision. If a community is to be cohesive it should share equal opportunities of experience. Without experience learning is limited.

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Criteria for the learning experiences were set. Transport for all was to be provided by the school, free of charge for parents and children. (This had major budget implications but having the wherewithal, the determination to succeed and make the programme high profile and high priority, the funding was found). It had to go to places that families could return to via public transport with no entrance fees. Easy access to learning and a potential to develop skills for both parent and child were vital.

There was also the intention to give parents confidence and knowledge of the immediate locality and across the city. To be part of a community a family must know what the community holds and feel part of it. “Families In Thinking” not only broadens horizons, literacy, but also sought to heighten a sense of belonging.

The language in which learning or education is transmitted can easily acquire a superior status over the mother tongue which is not the language of the country of residence. The national language will most often and most obviously be the language of education. To give parents the confidence that their home language has educational value and can access learning in their new language was vital.

The school community was united by purpose: through sharing learning experiences with their own children, parents developed common experiences with other parents with whom they may have shared little culturally, ethnically or by language. Visits were organised approximately every six weeks and were made to art galleries, woods, lakes, local history museums and the city food market. Each provided a wealth of opportunities for experiential learning.

The impact of each trip on children’s learning was assessed by how language and particularly writing furthered language development, which was based on first-hand experience. The sense of enjoyment in finding out about the extended local community was immense. From the parents came a plethora of positive comments. These ranged from being excited by seeing “art” for the first time to the serenity of being alone with their child in the silence of a wood. Many parents commented about having returned to the places of visits and brought in family “project” which had been completed at home.

Community cohesion has many facets. Bringing communities together when they have so many diverse elements is challenging. Whether this is between communities which see themselves as different or in communities that share certain commonalities the challenge is there. In education we must seek out every opportunity to bring communities together in learning, achieve a sense of belonging and recognising a shared future. Our goal is to produce “young citizens of conscience”; the opportunity is on our doorstep.

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Literature education in multicultural and/or plurilingual context María José Molina García

University of Granada, Faculty of Education and Humanities of Melilla Abstract In the dynamism of a constantly changing society, with open borders across the world that allow the flow of populations from one country to another, it is an indisputable fact that there is no single cultural space, rather there exists an enriching heterogeneity in which cultures are shared. This reality obligates us, in the best notion of the expression, to alter our perspective; this change is not always a spontaneous one, rather, in most cases we need resources or support that educates us about living together.

The classrooms of educational institutions are a clear reflection and example of this social transformation in which diverse individuals and their respective cultures can gather together. Literature is an essential tool in such multicultural contexts whether they are monolingual or multilingual. Not only does a reader come from his or her own cultural background and carry with them characteristics and idiosyncrasies while interpreting a written text, but also literature itself is a vehicle for the transmission of culture and is thusly produced in close relation with it.

In this work, we present the theoretical assumptions which we rely on, as well as practical examples of how to execute such educational work in order to contribute to this world being a truly intercultural space.

Literary education What is literary education? Why is it necessary to teach literature? What benefits do we get from it? If we stop to reflect on these questions, the only valid response we can give to these or similar queries as instructors or future teachers is that, without a doubt, there exists an everlasting beneficial relationship between books and the reader.

Literature is, effectively, a basic tool in a person’s education; it is an anthropological necessity, as some authors have called it, which manifests at an early age1. Who has never asked to be told a story or have one read to them? Who has never been captivated, given the right circumstances (which are not necessarily set in stone, rather they can vary based on personal interests), when listening to a story? The way in which books help us understand the world has been a topic approached from diverse perspectives by different authors.

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We know that, from a linguistic point of view, books enrich one’s vocabulary and improve one’s elocution and self-expression as well as other communicative capacities.

And evidently, with texts produced to serve as a model, the reader incipiently senses the esthetics of that language. The reader can also relate to and associate with the text; they can intertextualize, that is to say, recall other texts and establish comparisons so that the reader becomes able to recognize the conventions that regulate different types of texts.

Through this they can also gain cultural knowledge. This point of view would then bear a broad relation with strictly literary benefits, and it would support the development of literary competence.

Nonetheless, adults are not the only ones who are able to enjoy the richness of literature; the youngest of readers are also able to share in this delight.

Psychologically, it is held in high regard that children’s literature helps children understand human problems. They identify familiar issues in the literature they read and relate those controversial situations to their realities, contemplating, as though in a movie, how those situations would play out. This, in turn, allows them to implement correct practical solutions. On occasion, when the difficulty or problem is urgent, literature gives them precipitated or permanent solutions, always within reach of the child’s comprehension, which establishes order in their realities. It presents, in addition, instruction on moral norms not in an abstract sense, but rather in a tangible form much less forced and dramatic than if they were learned through a real life experience in the classroom or at home.

On the other hand, a text can communicate important messages to the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious, and it helps to overcome the psychological problems of growth by organizing one’s own dreams through images conceived through the structure of a story. At the same time, the reader sees basic human conflicts, thus showing them that fighting adversity is unavoidable and that there exist certain concepts in permanent duality. And, more importantly, literature can provide the reader with characters as role models who succeed without having social advantages; so it confirms that we must not seek out eternal happiness, rather we must learn to be happy when we have reached what we have set out to become or do in certain moments.

From an emotional perspective, reading for an adult, provided that it does not have a determined function (informational or for memorization, for example), can mean an escape from the world in which one lives, just “( ) por el puro gusto de leer, por amor invencible al libro, por ganas de estarse con él horas y horas. ( )” (Salinas, 1986:184)2.

For children, the contrary - the book provokes a combination of real life experiences with the development of one’s creativity, of one’s imagination and fantasy. Reading, at these ages, is an act based on reality by means of one’s imagination and it allows the 94

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pursuit of pleasure and of constant discoveries. The emotions experienced in the course of reading contribute to forming one’s personality and enables access to what Colomer (1999) calls the collective imaginary.

This dimension, that we dare say develops almost exclusively on an individual level, can be complemented, from the literary field, by the social sphere. In line with this, reading becomes a means for efficient socializing that children should not go without, and which is necessary for their complete growth since it allows them to adopt social values that are transmitted through this medium either intentionally or implicitly. It deals with an ever accessible, open window to the world, from which one can observe and come to know other social and cultural realities, as well as other environments that may be more or less known, but then become more accessible.

Along the same lines, reading is also a way of relating to the world which in turn lets one establish channels of communication with their equals; with adults, the content of a book can be reason for debate or sharing opinions. Recently, because of this, many worries and uncertainties have arisen about how to foster reading in the family setting.

We are not going to delve too much into that topic, so as not to get unnecessarily distracted3, but we will allude to the empathy that is established when parents read to their children and the opportunity therein afforded for relaxing conversation for both parties; an opportunity that is easily extended, if cultivated, to other contexts that form part of the social environment of the individual.

All this set forward allows us to talk about literary education as an instructive tool in multicultural contexts, an aspect that we will try to explain in the following section.

La educación, en efecto, no es sino una pugna, a menudo aflictiva, por sacar a los alumnos de sí mismos, de su estrecho mundo, para encaminarlos al encuentro de otros mundos, de otras voces. Es en ese territorio ajeno e incógnito donde se produce el verdadero aprendizaje. Aprender es un impulso de ir hacia lo ignorado, una voluntad de abrirse a la presencia de otros (Mata, 2009:17)4

Literature and culture: literary education as a resource for interculturality So that all these benefits can be achieved, it is important that we not think of reading as only a technical ability. Reading is much more than deciphering a linguistic code. It is a process through which the individual constructs the meaning of a text upon relating language with thought. It deals with an interactive dialogue between the individual reader and the text in order to come to an understanding of the latter; an idea well illustrated by Garrido: Lo que hace falta para que un niño -o un adulto- llegue a ser un lector de verdad es 95

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ayudarlo a descubrir que la lectura de libros y la costumbre de escribir están relacionadas con la lectura y la transformación del mundo, y pueden tener un sentido profundo para su vida. Por eso no tiene objeto descomponer la lectura en sus destrezas mecánicas, tal como suele suceder en la enseñanza diaria ( ). Cuando la atención se concentra en estos aspectos secundarios y no en la comprensión del texto, se dificulta la formación del lector, pues se fragmenta la lectura, se le restan significado y sentido, se entorpece su comprensión e, ipso facto, la oportunidad de disfrutarla. A nada conviene que esté más atento un lector que a construir la comprensión de lo que lee. La clave para aprovechar y gozar sus lecturas es comprender: sumar significado y sentido, sentimiento y reflexión.

(2004:48)5.

We arrive at another concept: reader comprehension. Reading, understood as a process of comprehension, requires an active, participating reader. Comprehension of the text depends on the capacity to process information and on the limits that may exist, as well as on other processes – cognitive, linguistic, psychological, informational, perceptional, and even anthropological.

Therefore, reader comprehension turns out to be a process of decrypting the text and relating it to experiences the reader already has. One must understand how the author structures and organizes the ideas in the text, as well as relate the information that one extracts from the text with other ideas already in the reader’s memory. Therefore, in this process of ascertaining meaning from a text, the subject learns how to identify relevant ideas and relate them with those already in his or her mind.

This then would mean that different readers, given the same text, will be able to interpret the meaning of that text in different ways upon contributing their own experiences to the interpretation. All three components - the reader, the text, and the contextual factors - will influence the meaning. On the other hand, the form of the text will play a part as well, since it will generate distinct expectations, objectives and demands. The reader will begin by identifying the messages within the text and he or she will choose pieces of information and textual and contextual familiarities, thus constructing their own textual interpretation. The context that the reader comes from will also influence the meaning of a text, since readers belong to certain groups of people, shaped by their social context. Also, it is undeniable that every text is written in its own specific context. Abril Villalba (2004) expertly articulates it by differentiating between two concepts: meaning and interpretation. The first is derived from the text and is unique in and of itself and the second emerges from the relation between the text and its audiences, which have their own individual characteristics deemed plurality and variety.

All of this leads to distinguishing between types or levels of reader comprehension 96

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that correspond, in a gradational form, to a greater understanding of the reading: literal, interpretive, and critical reader comprehension.

Literal comprehension implies a recognition and memorization of the facts such as they appear in the text, that is, a repetition of the main ideas, details and the sequence of events. This dimension is what is most often worked with in the classroom since this approach checks basic aspects of the reading act: memory, attention, linguistic comprehension, etc…

Interpretive comprehension supposes attributing meaning to what is taken from the text by relating it to personal experience and previous knowledge the student has. It is a process that enables the reader to actively participate in developing the meaning of that text through extracting the relevant information from the story and relating it to what the reader already possesses. A literary text must be read and enjoyed while understanding and interpreting its meaning. In relation to all of that we should also keep in mind that the literary text is a document related to culture and, upon being an actual text, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, and aesthetic factors of that culture should be taken into account for understanding and for attributing meaning to the text. Professor Mendoza states this as such: El interés por la utilización de los materiales literarios está en relación con la creciente valoración didáctica de la participación personal, la implicación, la interacción y la cooperación en todos los procesos de aprendizaje. (2007:10)6 Following this, the subject can perform a critical comprehension when they form their own judgments and expresses personal opinions about the content of what they have just read.

And how can all this become a resource for dealing with interculturality in the classroom? Let’s review the basic ideas that we have discussed up to this point: on one hand, we know that the individual, from birth, absorbs the characteristics of his culture as he comes to know them and the classroom becomes a meeting place for children with their respective cultural knowledge; on the other hand, we have assumed that literature, in addition to contributing to linguistic and literary evolution, has a positive effect on the emotional and psychological dimensions of an individual; also, we are convinced that reading plays a part in the social relations that the reader establishes; likewise, we have clarified that reading is a constant search for meaning which is influenced by each person’s own idiosyncrasies, and to be most effective, it should produce a reader comprehension that is not only literal, but also interpretive and critical. Of course, we assume that the teacher should stimulate, foster, and guide the development of this literary competency in order to train a reader with all these abilities and that this should

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be practiced from the early levels, that is to say, children’s education, to be able to achieve this ambitious objective7.

Given all that we have been explaining, with children that have their own social and cultural backgrounds who are being taught to read, an instructor must approach interculturality in the classroom through literature. Thanks to literature it is possible to place yourself in the shoes, so to speak, of various characters from distinct times and places given a variety of circumstances. Literature offers the opportunity to be many different people, and to experience situations that otherwise might never be experienced.

It places us in other worlds with distinct occurrences, where values or behaviour are complete opposites of that which an individual may know. Also, it is a great vehicle to find out how lives thousands of miles away may evolve and change, what the concerns of other societies are, the myths they hold or the realities of everyday life in that society, or even the lives of people just around the corner.

All of this allows the reader’s thoughts to be externalized, whether they are an adult or child, so the debate the book brings up invites the reader not only to apply the text’s message to their own reality, but also to be participants in their own interpretations.

That is to say, they can relay the meaning they get from the text when related to their own personal experiences and previous knowledge to the rest of their friends and people around them. And this act, in turn, expresses their form of understanding and comprehending the text.

When dealing with the type of literature we have been talking about, the classroom can become a very enriching meeting point for ideas in educational institutions.

Children, naturally, do not usually choose their friends for ethnic or cultural reasons; it tends to be society which influences them in this respect. To prevent them from growing up with prejudices, one must offer them a critical, yet respectful introduction to these other cultures that surround them. In this sense, Gremigner y Guiñazú (2006) suggest that the most natural way of arriving at this is for the multiculturally aware teacher to incorporate this respectful principle of cultural differences and interculturality in every classroom activity.

In books we can find examples of tolerance, coexistence, and the fostering of values.

Publishing houses have reinforced this concept through the greater frequencies in which they release books whose contents clearly deal with intercultural education. Thanks to this we have children and young adult’s literature for not only literary training, but also for bringing the theme of diversity to the classroom. As always, it is the instructor’s task to select those books that offer the best quality in both aspects. For this, not only must the literary content be examined, but the illustrations that accompany it as well (and which are just as important at these ages). Of course the way in which these are reflected 98

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in the existing societal diversity must be examined as well.

We are fortunate to have experts who have taken it upon themselves to recommend reference books to work with in the classroom. For example, Marco (2002) suggests Rosa Caramelo by Adela Turín and Nelia Bosnia, Elmer by David Mackee, Oliver Button es una nena by Tomi de Paola, Billy y el vestido rosa by Anne Fine and Philippe Dupasquier with a translation by Magdalena Ródenas, Manuela and El gato de los ojos de color de oro both by Marta Osorio, among others. In addition, Sapo y Sepo by Arnol Lobel, Frederick and Nadarín both by Leo Lionni, El gentil dragón rojo by Max Velthuijs, Las travesuras de Julio by Úrsula Wölfel, La conejita Marcela by Esther Tusquets suggested by Javier Flor Rebanal (2002). These titles deal with themes of sexual non-discrimination, unity, freedom, and the defense of the right to diversity.

On the other hand, there are more specific books that bring us closer to the world of minorities. Titles like Cuentos judíos de la aldea de Chelo from Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, Trubloff, el ratón que quería tocar la balalaica by John Burningham or Hermano Cielo, Hermana Águila by Susan Jeffers, can be good examples according to Javier Flor Rebanal (2002).

We shouldn’t forget the collections of La Galera in collaboration with the Asociación de Maestros of Rosa Sensat titled “Yo vengo de “ and “Yo soy de “ Even though they are directed toward children eight years and older, the truth is that the photographs and images can spark interesting debate and wonder from early ages. The important part of these books is that the young protagonists themselves are the ones who explain their customs, their ways of life, their problems, etc which enables the communication to be more fluid and understandable for young readers.

Also, regarding this subject, we have the professor García Padrino (2005) who wrote a magnificent dissertation for the eighth Simposio de la Sociedad de Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura (Badajoz, 2003), in which he proposed a classification for children and young adult’s Spanish literature that deals with the topic of interculturality and that we can now offer the reader: •

Works where diversity or cultural differences are presented as a resource for the setting of the story or conflict. For example, La casa pintada (1990) or El bambú resiste la riada (1996), both by Montserrat del Amo.

•

Works which promote the knowledge of other cultures: Cuentos nórdicos, Cuentos africanos, 25 cuentos populares de Europa, etc.

•

Works that directly address the treatment of themes or conflicts linked to an intercultural problem: El amigo Dwanga (1992), by Rodrigo Rubio which deals with the issue of exploitation of workers without official papers in harsh environments; Algún día, cuando pueda llevarte a Varsovia (1997), by Lorenzo Silva, where immigrants live with natives of the country; La reina de los mares (2003), by Montserrat del Amo, the

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story of the difficult and demanding journey to countries promising something more; Vidas (2005), by Mercé Rivas, where the author recreates the awful journey across the Straight of Gibraltar on rickety boats

Although we encourage the educator that reads this to consult and analyze these books to work with them in class, we would like to make another proposal. We hold the opinion that almost any book can meet this demand, provided that it is used with an open mind. If we assume that the teacher must work with a text, under the terms we have previously discussed, not only regarding literal comprehension, but also interpretive and critical comprehension in order for the students to establish a necessary interactive dialogue with the book (a complete reading of the text), we will then have the opportunity to tackle intercultural aspects in the classroom. We don’t always have to fall back on books whose content has been developed for and because of interculturality.

With near certainty, any text can be approached from that perspective; although the story’s argument may not have multiculturalism as an overtone, the instructor can find a way to relate the content to cultural diversity in the pooling, debate or assembly from the reading. In other words, the instructor can relate the book to interculturality issues at the time of guiding the literal, interpretive or critical reading comprehension of the students. One thing is clear: the teacher cannot obviate the theme and the students cannot abstain from it. Or rather, when a story is selected based on certain criteria (as a resource for the topic being discussed in class, appropriate for the student’s interests, with nice illustrations, an attractive theme, or a conducive format, etc.8) to be didactically read and analyzed, one must find how to relate it with and also take from it some aspect of interculturality.

We will present some examples that we find illustrative of what we have just explained that might serve as an orientation, or if they have picked the interest of our reader: •

El sapo que no quería comer (1998), written by Martha Sastrías and illustrated by Francisco Nava Bouchaín, presents us with the problem of the Toad King who, as a guest of the Turtle Kingdom, is pampered with the finest delicacies, yet he refuses to try them since they are not part of his typical diet. However, because of his shyness he is unable to admit this. This in turn, worries his host who looks for solutions or other substances to cure the Toad King’s illness.

•

It is a conducive story for working with children and teaching about the dietary differences that exist between people(s), differences that make us individuals and unique, but not incompatible, and that, in turn, can enrich our world.

•

Abuelo Tejón, ¿tú sabes hacerlo? (2000), written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Phan Leuyen, deals with the story of a grandfather and his grandson. The young boy thinks he can take on the world because he can do things his grandfather cannot and does not want to do. This shows that the grandfather is capable of caringly teaching his grandson many things learned with life experience, of course within caring relation between grandfather and grandson.

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Such a story lets us introduce the theme of family, its members, the genetic tree, searching for one’s roots, as well as reflecting on the links that unite us with all this.

•

Mazapán (1990), written by Marta Osorio and illustrated by Irene Bordoy, takes place at Christmas time (although it doesn’t directly deal with this theme), a time of imagination, illusion, dreams, and love. We witness the friendship that arises between a boy and a marzipan figure that comes to life and follows the boy through his everyday life.

•

This story inevitably leads us to discuss the celebration of holidays from different religions or cultures and their traditions. We can also compare them and see that there are more similarities than differences in such celebrations.

•

El Mausito (1991), story by Lolo Rico and illustrations by José Ramón Sánchez, follows a little animal who is just born and needs to find out who he is. This problem of selfdiscovery is remedied as the little animal meets other forest animals and compares himself with them.

•

The question of self-discovery is very important in early childhood where children´s personalities are formed, so it is a good occasion to deepen this aspect of self-knowledge and the habits of one’s cultural surroundings, and at the same time discover those of others.

•

Tragasueños (2001), written by Michael Ende with illustrations by Annegert Fuchsbuber takes place in the country of Dormilandia where everyone sleeps, although the princess Dormilina cannot because she always has bad dreams. This affects her health and so her parents, very worried for her, beckon people form all sorts of lands, religions, and cultures in search of a solution.

•

This story lets us talk, albeit in an indirect way, about natural and home remedies that are used on occasion in certain cultures to help with health issues.

•

Sopa de calabaza (2001), whose writer and illustrator is Helen Cooper, shows us the relation between three friends (a squirrel, a duck, and a cat) that live together in perfect harmony because each of them perform their roles in the home until one of them breaks their role. Reestablishing the harmony is difficult, but all of them are willing to sacrifice for the friendship.

•

The main message being worked with is how someone’s selfish and capricious behavior can ruin the balance in a shared living environment, showing that respect for certain rules and for others is integral in any community or relationship.

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Leo, el muñeco de nieve (1989), written by Sylvia Loretan and illustrated by Jan Lenica, is about a doll made of snow named Leo. When the children that made him go to sleep, Leo finds himself lonely and he then listens to a little bird that just migrated south. The bird tells him of the marvels and warm lands where he came from and Leo begins to dream…

The presentation of two distinct locations can give us an opportunity to examine traditions of other lands, other countries different from our own, and their distinct climates.

•

El hombrecillo de papel (1995), whose author and illustrator is Fernando Alonso, is an

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imaginative story whose protagonist is a little man made of newspaper created by a girl who was tired of all her toys. The little man comes to life and acquires autonomy. He then tries to make all the children around him happy and he goes in search of a way to do so.

This is a book full of symbols and good intentions. Through the protagonist of this text, a newspaper, and the reaction of the people given his news, we can work not only with “good news” referring to peace, coexistence, unity, etc… but we can also work with news referring to cultural events and expressions.

•

Un beso para osito (1989), written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, is the story of a baby bear that sends a drawing to his grandmother.

His grandmother, in a show of affection, sends him back a kiss through a chain of animals that reach back to him.

This sweet story gives us an opportunity to work with, among other subjects and aspects, forms of loving expressions that can differ among cultures, the different connotations of kisses, the different contexts, etc…

Up to this point we have presented works of young adult and children’s

literature which can be used to work with the topic of interculturality in childhood and primary education. But we would like to remind those who read this that in the corpus of literature not directed at children there are more works that breach and encourage the theme of cultural diversity or works that, at least following the same tendency put forth in this work, can be useful to stimulate debate and serve as a crossroads of ideas, if this is an aim. Establishing a parallel classification to that already put forth, we suggest: •

Classic works in which cultural differences are a primary theme. For example, Matar a un ruiseñor (1960), by Harper Lee, which was made into a marvelous screen adaptation

by Robert Mulligan in 1962.

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More modern works where cultural conflict is a secondary theme set temporally in tumultuous eras, such as Tomates verdes fritos (1991), by Fannie Flagg, that has also been made into a movie, Fried Green Tomatoes (Jon Avnet, 1991)

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Works whose central theme is susceptible to being addressed from different cultural points of view, such as Yerma, by García Lorca which deals with female infertility9.

•

More tragic works like Quebdani. El cerco de la estirpe (1997), by Antonio Abad.

Literary education in multicultural and multilingual contexts Until this point, we have not talked about an additional aspect – with assiduity, cultural diversity is also a linguistic diversity. Are literature and literary education then useful in these situations? Undoubtedly, yes. Language and literature have always been related and there is a long didactic tradition in this sense, that dates back to ancient times; Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were aware of the existence of different languages and the necessity of finding channels of communication, though this did not present 102

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an insurmountable obstacle. Nonetheless, with a communicative focus on teaching languages, the role of literature was consigned to a secondary status, and even set aside altogether, given the belief that when presented with a text in a non-native language (whether it was a second language or a foreign language) there was such difficulty in its comprehension that it was a task doomed to failure.

We are of the opinion that literature is neither an elitist nor abstract entity, rather it gains meaning as an act of communication. From the didactic perspective, it ends up being an enriching resource of communicative competence, so, duly used, it teaches and broadens as well as perfects communicative abilities. As professor Mendoza affirms: ( ) La diversidad de recursos lingüísticos que muestran las producciones literarias es la base par amuchas propuestas que enriquecen la competencia comunicativa a través de la recepción de las creaciones escritas. (…) (2007:13).10 This same professor considers that literary discourse is supported by three semiotic codes; the first of them would be configured by the language system in question and the use of the same; this would lead to the second code formed by the literary use of the language, the literary text itself and the work as a system, working toward the third code of assigning cultural value to the literary work.

For Úcar (2008) literature as an expertly executed manifestation of language can also repair the lack, or deficiencies in the teaching-learning process through several functions: motivation, identification, reflection and interpretation. Regarding the first, it will allow meaning and content comprehension and recovery, recognition and recording of knowledge; regarding identification, occurrences will be acknowledged and come to be better known; with reflection experiences will be recreated and reconstructed and interpretation will allow for resolution and answering queries.

In this sense, the intensive and extensive reading activities are crucial, not only as natural and strategic means for understanding language, but also as circumstantial activities of oral support, complement or support for teaching that fosters intimacy for reading as well as the joy of reading about other languages and cultures.

We are aware of the impossibility of extensively addressing the topic at the moment, but we don’t want to forego the opportunity to at least, outline it to bring to the reader’s attention that it can be researched and used in a search for information about strategies that could facilitate text comprehension in the multilingual and multicultural classroom, and from this there are more and more authors that write about their experiences and what they have learned.

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Other supporting material For the instructor interested in what we have discussed, we recommend the frequent consultation of specialized magazines where one can find titles to work with in the classroom, as well as useful didactic guidelines about how to work with them.

So, we recommend magazines such as: Literatura e interculturalidad; Primeras Noticias de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil (which is published every two years and concentrates on interculturality); Lectura y Vida; CLIJ; Textos from Editorial Graó, Lenguaje y Textos from the Sociedad de Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura, among others. This Society is also the locale for national and international conferences where a panel or board discusses the diffusion of topics related to interculturality and whose events are posted on their webpage. Of course, the magazines mentioned, in addition to being available in paper form, are also easily accessible on the internet.

And now that we have invited the reader to visit cyberspace, we also suggest that you explore those pages since the internet is such an effective tool for finding information regarding this topic. You might find, for example, visit the NCRCL (National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature), an institution in the United Kingdom that fosters research in the realm of Children’s Literature, on whose webpage (www.ncrcl.ac.uk) we can find a link to EPBC (European Picture Book Collection), www.ncrcl.ac.uk/epbc. This is about a project financed by the European Commission and headed by Doctor Penni Cotton11, whose objective coincides with one of the most prevalent educational lines put in place by the European Union: the development of intercultural competency in the citizens of member nations. In this project, 15 member nations have participated in selecting an illustrated book that would meet certain requirements: that it reflects a universal theme of childhood, that it take place in a specific cultural environment unique to its country’s culture, that it be narrated from a child’s point of view, as well as that it be inspired by childhood experiences that those countries have in common and not those that separate them. From this, knowledge of other countries and cultures would be gained.

Final observations Reading is a fundamental learning and an exceptional tool to organize the thoughts of human beings. As a social activity reading experiences are apt to be shared with others (which has been given the name of dialogue reading and shared reading); first with parents, later in pairs and with teachers, librarians, and everyone who wants to share in this situation.

Books invite reflection, inviting people to have a critical spirit, and make informed

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aesthetic, political, personal, and civic judgments.

Why not use literature in the classroom to share our signs of identity, our culture?

Why not get to know others through it?

Why not use it to show and foster interculturality?

References Abril Villalba, M. (2004). Enseñar lengua y literatura: comprensión y producción de textos.

Archidona (Málaga): Aljibe.

Colomer, T. (1999). La enseñanza de la literatura como construcción del sentido. Lectura y Vida, 22, 2-19.

Flor Rebanal, J. (2002). Cuentos desde la diversidad. Primeras Noticias. Revista de Literatura, 191, 23-34.

García Padrino, J. (2005). Una tendencia en la Literatura Infantil actual: el tratamiento de la interculturalidad. In Actas del VIII Simposio de la SEDLL: Cultura, intercultural y didáctica de la lengua y la literatura (Badajoz, from december 3 to december 6, 2003).

Service of publications of the University of Extremadura.

Garrido, F. (2004). Para leerte mejor. Mecanismos de la lectura y de la formación de lectores.

México, D.F.: Planeta.

Gremigner, C. & Guiñazú, L. (2006). La didáctica de la literatura. El relato de una interculturalidad olvidada. Primeras Noticias. Revista de Literatura, 216, 79-82.

Marco, A. (2002). Multiculturalismo y educación. Primeras Noticias. Revista de Literatura, 191, 9-19.

Mata , J. (2009). Mundo de lectores, maestros de lectura. In Ámbitos para la dinamización de la lectura (pp. 13-25). Granada: GEU. Mendoza Fillola A. (2007). Materiales literarios en el aprendizaje de lengua extranjera.

Barcelona: Horsori Editorial. Úcar Ventura, P. (2008). El texto literario en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje de segundas lenguas en universitarios. In Actas del VIII Congreso de Lingüística General: el valor de la diversidad (meta) lingüística (pp. 1950-1962). Available at www.uam.es/clg8.

“The realization of this work has been financed by the Contract-Research Program signed on April 1 2009 between the collective of researchers from the Faculty of Education and Humanities of Melilla and the Vice-President of Scientific Policy and 105

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Research at the University of Granada”.

Notes 1 The first contact with literature is found in the family environment; the role of the schools is not to take over, rather it is to share the responsibility of this fundamental task.

2 “(…) for the sake of reading, for an unbeatable love towards a book, for enjoying it for hours and hours (…)” (Translation of the author). Salinas, P. (1986). Defensa de la lectura. In El defensor (pp.

110-226). Madrid: Alianza.

3 We refer the interested reader to Molina García, M.J. (2009). La familia también anima a leer. In A.M. Rico Martín and others (Ed.) Ámbitos para la dinamización de la lectura (pp. 83-95). Granada: GEU. 4 “Education, indeed, is nothing else but a struggle, more than often grief-laden, for releasing students from their inner-self, their inner-world. It leads them towards a direct encounter with other worlds, other voices. It is in this far-distant and unknown territory where the true process of learning comes true. Learning encourages students deepening on the unnoticed and being willing to open themselves before others.” (Translation of the author).

5 “All it takes for a child –or an adult- to become a real reader is helping them finding out that reading books and writing as a habit are activities related to reading and world transformation, both of which might become strongly meaningful in their own lives. Hence, it does not make sense decomposing reading into its mechanical skills, as done in daily practice (…). When attention focuses on secondary aspects and not on text comprehension, the training of the reader becomes more difficult. Reading becomes a fragmented activity where the meaning and sense are taken off, the comprehension is hindered, and, ipso facto, the possibility of enjoying reading. Nothing is more convenient for the reader’s attention than reconstructing the comprehension of what is being read.

The key to benefit from and enjoy reading is through understanding: adding meaning, feelings and reflection.” (Translation of the author) 6 “Having an interest for using literary materials is related to the growing pedagogic assessment of personal participation, implication, interaction and cooperation in every learning process.”

(Translation of the author).

7 For those interested in consulting a didactic research proposal directed to this early stage of education, see Molina García, M.J. (2007). Las habilidades de comprensión lectora en la etapa de Educación Infantil. Una propuesta de intervención didáctica. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada.

8 Regarding these criterion, we direct the interested reader to Ricardo, M.A. (2006). Qué literatura para el alumnado de los primeros años. Un enfoque intercultural. Primeras Noticias. Literatura Infantil y Juvenil, 216, 83-92.

9 Regarding this topic and how to approach it in the classroom, see Molina García, M.J. (2002).

Una propuesta didáctica para trabajar la comprensión lectora en un texto dramático de Federico García Lorca. Primeras Noticias, 181, 62-68.

10 “(…) The diversity of linguistic resources showing that literary production is the basis for many proposals enriching communicative skills through reception of written works (…).” (Translation of the author).

11 Doctor Penni Cotton is a researcher in the University of Surrey Roehampton (London, United Kingdom).

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D i ve r s i t y ,

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Authors Volume 1: Social Issues

Eric Cattelain University of Bordeaux 3 Bordeaux, France

Jakub Zouhar University of Hradec Kralové, Czech Republic

Julia Athena Spinthourakis University of Patras, Department of Elementary Education Patras, Grece

Eric Cattelain is an intercultural expert for several organizations and associated Master of Conference at the IUT Michel de Montaigne – University of Bordeaux 3. He has a PhD in Linguistics. For the last 25 years, he has been creating linguistic and cultural models based on sharing cultures and knowledge, including the elaboration of UNIDEO system: a transdisciplinary, transcultural and translinguistic metalanguage which aims at representing every concept or notion by ideographic means. His research covers different fields from multicultural education, European tools for managing intercultural projects, to Internet cultural backgrounds. He has coordinated many international projects through years. He is also the author of novels for young adults.

Jakub Zouhar is an historian. He teaches early modern history and medieval history at the Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Science, at the University of Hradec Kralové, in the Czech Republic. He was committed to the international relations at the office and one of his research interests are about language, communication and minority languages in Europe.

Julia Athena Spinthourakis is a Tenured Assistant Professor of Multilingual and Multicultural Education in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Patras, Greece.

She is also Course Design and Evaluation Module Coordinator for the Masters Program in EFL at the Hellenic Open University, Greece. She is on the Post-graduate teaching faculty of the University of Western Macedonia’s Department of Nursery School Education in Florina Greece. She has taught at the primary, secondary and tertiary level of education in the United States and Greece as well as working in the government and nongovernmental sector. Among her research interests are culture/language/communication, identity and teacher education. She has authored and co-authored articles and book chapters on topics related to her research interests in Europe and the United States.

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Māra Vidnere Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy

Māra Vidnere is Doctor habil. Of Psychology (Dr. habil.

Psych.). She is a profesor at the Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy, in Latvia. Her research interests are about Social Psychology, Psychology of Management, Extreme Stress, Stress Management and one of her major publications is the book ‘Latvian Survivors of Deportations’ (co-authored with A. Nucho).

Riga, Latvia Patroula Antonopoulou University of Patras, Department of Elementary Education Patras, Grece Tore Bernt Sørensen Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitetsskole, Aarhus Universitet/ Danish School of Education, Aarhus University

Patroula Antonopoulou is a post graduate student at the Department of Elementary Education studying Intercultural Education and Greek as a Second Language.

An elementary school teacher with many years experience, Mrs. Antonopoulou is the Headmistress/Principal of the historic Stroumbio Elementary School in Patras and former elementary school consultant at the regional Institute for Omogenia and Intercultural Education. Her research interests are aligned with minority language and culture rights and their integration.

Tore Bernt Sørensen completed the Master of Arts (Education) in Educational Sociology, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, in 2011. He taught young immigrant students in Copenhagen before becoming engaged in 2003 with in-service teacher training and education R&D activities in the Centre for Bilingualism and Interculturality (UC2), University College Capital, Copenhagen. He stayed in this post until autumn 2009 when he chose to focus on his MA studies. Tore Bernt Sørensen is the author of numerous publications concerning issues related to education policy, intercultural education and school development in Europe and Denmark.

Copenhagen, Denmark Virgílio Gonzalez University of Granada, Faculty of Education and

Virgílio Gonzalez is a professor of Political Sciences and administration at the University of Granada (Campus of Melilla). He is involved in several international projects, namely with Portuguese organizations and universities.

Humanities of Melilla Melilla, Spain

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William G Davey Professor Emeritus Arizona State University Chair, AIEA Professional Development Committee 2009-10 European Union Erasmus Mundus Scholar

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Diversity,

Communication

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Coexistence

William G. Davey, Ph.D. Education. B.A. (1968) Communication (Penn State University); M.A. (1971) Communication and Linguistics (Columbia University); Ph.D. (1974) Communication (Indiana University). Bill Davey joined the faculty of Arizona State University in 1976 as part of a team to develop the Ph.D. in Intercultural Communication within the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. As a faculty member, Dr. Davey taught a variety of courses in language and culture, international communication, intercultural communication, and research methods. He served as Director of Graduate Studies, Director of the Communication Internship Program, and acting chair of the department. Administratively, Dr. Davey has served as Associate Director of International Programs, Director of the American Language and Culture Program, Director of ASU-Japan, and as Director of International Programs in the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. Bill retired from ASU in August 2007, and served as Vice President for Academic Affairs for Cultural Experiences Abroad in Tempe from August 2007-December 2008. He has consulted for several universities and fortune 500 companies including American Express, Intel, and Honeywell.

As an active participant in community affairs and faculty governance, Bill serves on the Board of Directors of the Arizona World Affairs Council and the Phoenix Sister Cities Commission. He has served on the Governing Council of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research.

Bill has served the university as President of the Academic Senate and Faculty Assembly, as Chair of the Arizona Faculties Council, and as a member of several Arizona Board of Regents committees. He served on the Combined Support Team for the Governor’s Taskforce on Higher Education and the ABOR Learner Centered Education Team. Bill is active in NASFA, AIEA, EIEA, the Forum on Education Abroad and Sister City activities. He is currently Chair of the AIEA Professional Development Committee and serves on the AIEA Executive Committee. Bill is a 2009-2010 European Union Erasmus Mundus Scholar.

Bill has travelled extensively and has served as a visiting scholar in Canada, Finland, Wales, Japan and the Soviet Union.

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Wolfgang Berg Hochschule Merseburg Merseburg, Germany

Wolfgang Berg, born 1949 in Rosenheim, has studied Political Sciences, German Literature, Linguistics and History in Munich. After teacher’s examination and PhD in Linguistics, due to a long period of volunteering in youth work, he started to work as director of the international department of Bavarian Youth Council in 1979. 1994 he moved to the University of Applied Sciences in Merseburg as professor for European Studies. Within study programmes for social workers and media/culture educators he is teaching culture and social policy, political education, intercultural learning and cultural exchange. Recent publications deal with transcultural personalities and culture policy.

VOLUME 2: EDUCATIONAL ISSUES Clive Billighan Children & Young People’s Service, Leicester City Council Leicester, United Kingdom

Clive Billingham is a Consultant for Equality, Diversity & Cohesion in Leicester City Council’s Learning Services. Clive has worked as a teacher of social studies and English as an Additional Language in secondary schools in Dudley, London, Bradford and Nottingham. He has an MA in Education and has worked as an education lecturer at De Montfort University, Leicester. He now works with schools on issues to do with cultural diversity, tackling racism and promoting community cohesion in Leicester, Britain’s most diverse city.

He has worked in multicultural education/race equality for 30 years and has published teaching materials, such as ‘Throwing Stones: an anti-racist teaching guide & video’ and guidance/ advice for schools, including the self-evaluation tool ‘Young, Gifted & Equal: race equality standards for schools’. He has also written articles/chapters for the National Association of Headteachers, Institute for Citizenship, Race Equality Teaching and Runnymede Trust and helped write the Get-in Manual for International School Projects. He has spoken and led workshops at national and international conferences. He has been involved EU projects, including the Print (to produce collaborative learning materials), and was UK Coordinator of Get-in! network (to increase minority ethnic participation in EU projects) and runs Lifelong Learning study visits to Leicester.

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Danny Felsteiner Music in Me Foundation Amsterdam, The Netherlands Ineke Braak – van Kasteel Music in Me Foundation Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Communication

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Coexistence

Danny Felsteiner is born in Haifa, Israel in 1977. He has studied double bass at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the Netherlands between 2004 and 2007. At this moment he’s living in Jerusalem and working for the Madaa Community Center in Silwan.

Ineke Braak – van Kasteel (born 1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands) was, until 2008, head mistress of the primary school division of the Berger Scholen Vereniging. The BSV caters for pupils from 4 – 18 years old and has traditionally offered art courses at all levels. From 2003 – 2008 Ineke was employed by the Conservatoire of the University InHolland where she taught didactics, pedagogy, and developmental psychology. She also co-ordinated both intra-mural and extra-mural activities of the Conservatoire’s Music-Teacher Training College. Ineke also contributed her expertise in the development and implementation of the competency-geared curriculum of the InHolland School of Communication, Media and Music. She developed the minor “Community Arts”.

From 2008 she has been active as the Education Manager of the Music in Me Foundation in the Netherlands and has also set up her consultancy “Ontwikkelwijs”, through which she offers her services as counsellor-coach and as an independent consultant and project manager in the field of education.

Since 11 March of 2010 she is a member of the local council of Bergen NH, specialised in education, culture and social affairs.

Koen Braak Music in Me Foundation Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Koen Braak, born in Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands in 1976, he studied jazz and popular music, ethnomusicology and cultural management and he is currently working as a programme manager for the Music in Me Foundation in the Netherlands.

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María del Mar Ortiz Gomez University of Granada, Campus of Melilla Melilla, Spain

Maria José Molina Garcia University of Granada, Faculty of Education and Humanities of Melilla Granada, Spain

María del Mar Ortiz Gomez is a lecturer and researcher from the Evolutional and Educational Psychology Department of the University of Granada at the Faculty of Education and Humanities in Melilla. Since 2000 she is a member of the research group “Curricular Innovation in Multicultural Contexts”. She teaches on special education in Education undergrade. She is currently the coordinator at the Campus of Melilla the undergrade in Social Education. Her main research interest is in the coexistence and cultural diversity, early dropouts, special education, and psychological implications in the Internet use. She has publised several articles and books in those areas.

Maria Jose Molina Garcia is a Doctor in Philology Spanish by the University of Granada. Was awarded a diploma in Teachers GBS (specialty Philology French) in the year 1988 and received his bachelor’s degree in Spanish Philology by UNED in 1998.

Officer of Career since 1990, has exercised as a teacher for eight years in a state Center for Child Education in Melilla with students multicultural and has also been monitora literacy, for people with mother tongue into Spanish, in the Pilot Plan for the comprehensive Training Citizen of adults (1988-91) and in the Plan for Continuing Education for Adults (1992), which was appointed coordinator in Melilla by the Ministry of Education and Science. Since the year 2000 taught their teaching within the department of teaching the Language and Literature at the Faculty of Education and Humanities of Melilla (University of Granada, first as associate professor at the department and, since the 2007, as a teacher partner dr. with permanent link to the University. Belongs to the Group of Research HUM457 called Teaching the Language and Literature, and has taught at the doctorate program that Faculty Trends and applications of the Educational Research with the course “Educational research in languages within contexts of interaction multilingual and multicultural”.

It is also Coordinator at Headquarters in Melilla of Permanent Classroom Training Open at the University of Granada directed persons with more tan 50 years of age. Account with numerous publications related to the skills and language skills necessary for the reading comprehension as well as on resources for the animation of the reading both for mother tongue, as for Spanish as a second language or foreign language. It has also training courses in these areas.

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Michalinos Zenbylas Open University of Chiprus, School of Humanities and Social Sciences Nicósia, Cyprus

Miguel Ángel Gallardo Vigil University of Granada, Campus of Melilla Melilla, Spain

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Diversity,

Communication

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Coexistence

Michalinos Zembylas is Assistant Professor of Education at the Open University of Cyprus. His research interests are in the areas educational philosophy and curriculum theory, and his work focuses on exploring the role of emotion and affect in curriculum and pedagogy. He is particularly interested in how affective politics intersect with issues of social justice pedagogies, intercultural and peace education, and citizenship education. Zembylas is the author of the books, Teaching With Emotion: A Postmodern Enactment (Information Age Publishing, 2005), Five Pedagogies, a Thousand Possibilities: Struggling for Hope and Transformation (Rotterdam, The Netherlands: SensePublishers, 2007), and The Politics of Trauma in Education (New York, Macmillan Palgrave, 2008).

He is also co-editor of Peace education in conflict and postconflict societies: comparative perspectives (with C. McGlynn, Z. Bekerman, & T. Gallagher, New York: Palgrave, MacMillan, 2009), ICT for education, development, and social justice (with C. Vrasidas and G. Glass, Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 2009), and Advances in Teacher Emotion Research (with Paul Schutz, Springer, 2009).

Miguel Ángel Gallardo Vigil, EdD. in Psychopedagogy from the University of Granada (Spain), is a lecturer and researcher from the Educational Research and Diagnosis Methods Department of the University of Granada at the Faculty of Education and Humanities in Melilla. He teaches on educational research in various undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at differente national universities. He is currently the coordinator at the Campus of Melilla of the Master in Secondary Education Teacher Training.

His main research interest is in the improvement of quality in Education, particularly, within the fields of employability, school coexistence and cultural diversity, early dropouts, and the use of ICTs, among others. He has published several national and international articles and books on this area.

He is a member of the research group “Curricular Innovation in Multicultural Contexts”. He has also coordinated different projects on teaching innovation and HE tutoring systems.

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Peter Driver Bridge Junior School Leicester, United

Peter Driver is the Headteacher of the Bridge Junior School in Leicester, a school committed to a wide range of intercultural initiatives and well-known for the diversity of its school community.

Kingdom Sebastián Sánchez Fernández University of Granada, Campus

PhD. Sebastián Sánchez Fernández. PhD. in Philosophy and Educational Sciences (Section of Educational Sciences), University of Valencia, Spain. Professor at the Faculty of Education and Humanities of Melilla, University of Granada. Member of the Department of Didactics and School Organization.

of Melilla Melilla, Spain

Researcher of the Peace and Conflict Research Institute of Granada University since it was set up in 1990. He has directed the collection of books EIRENE and has been Deputy Director between 2005 and 2008. Currently he is a member of the Management and Research Committees.

Director of the research group “Curricular Innovation in Multicultural Contexts” of the Andalusian Research Plan since its inception in 1988. He has directed and participated in several research projects funded by different institutions. He currently directs two, one on ‘school coexistence and cultural diversity “and another on” the causes and implications of early dropouts.

His teaching and research activity is mainly focused on Education for a Culture of Peace and Intercultural Education, themes on which he has written several books and articles. He also teaches these areas in undergraduate, doctoral and master’s degree in several universities. He has also given numerous lectures related to these issues. He is currently Representative of University of Granada Chancellor for the Campus of Melilla.

Ulla Lundgren Jonkoping University, School of Education and Communication Jonkoping, Sweden

Ulla Lundgren, assistant professor of Education at School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University, Sweden.

Her research interest is in the intercultural dimension of foreign language education and global citizenship education.

She has taught in teacher education for many years where she among other things has developed and worked in various interdisciplinary international courses of Intercultural Encounters.

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