Marginalisation and Co-created Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Marginalisation and Co-created Education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Through the Erasmus+ project Marginalisation and Co-Created Education (MaCE) Higher Education students from a range of positions were able to become part of the academic research community, being co-researchers and contributing with their expertise. MaCE is a joint cooperation between University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), University of Cumbria (UoC), United Kingdom and VIA University College (VIA), Denmark, drawing on the institution’s competence and experience. This is an innovative approach to generate synergy between education, research, innovation and social inclusion in order to include students who may have experienced marginalisation to develop research on dropouts as well as gaining accreditation through bachelor (BA) and master (MA) pathways.

MaCE built on four corner stones, 1) Co-constructed and socio cultural perspective, 2) the importance of context, 3) The indirect approach and 4) Equality Literacy. The first two points are visible through students being co-researchers. The project generated opportunities for them to work alongside the university researchers as part of the research community, learning skills and developing their self-efficacy encouraging them to continue their educational pathways as well as enhancing their employability. The context for both the higher education students and the students at school were visible when drawing upon students as a resource within research and the educational setting. The project built on young people and student’s’ experiences in developing the educational programs. Students from both masters and bachelors programs were trained in methodology and have worked side by side with experienced researchers in researching on younger ESL/NEET students. In this way, the students have drawn upon their own lived experiences (context) as well as learning practically and theoretically. The students were actively involved as interviewers, respondents, analysts and writers. They joined as individuals and became active participants in the social practices of a social, multidisciplinary and multinational community. In this way the students actively constructed their academic identity through this environment, and obtained academic merits, which has helped them stand firmly and secure in the meeting with the academic environment. The third corner stone “The indirect approach” (Moshuus & Eide, 2016) is a unique methodological approach utilised by the project to grasp the experiences put forth by disadvantaged young people, both in HEI and school. Through this approach and the data gathered by the co-researchers and researchers, we developed two models (the fourth point) Equality Literary (EQL) and Wellbeing, Education, Learning and Development Model (WELD). These models enabled a bio-social-cultural, life course, systemic view of educational privilege and disadvantage. Such an understanding informed an alternative approach to education in its broadest sense.

We found that many of the students entered the research community with an expertise from a range of life positions, disadvantaged and advantaged. These students brought new and valuable knowledge and competence into the community, giving them a sense of belonging in the academic milieu. The students also reported how the barriers between faculty and students disappeared when working together with researchers, how much more they had learned, that they felt comfortable in the role and that taking the next step in their academic studies seemed more likely. All in all 51 students participated and 13 researchers from the three countries. Most of the students have completed their course. Many of the students have been interested in going from BA to MA, and some from MA to PhD. At the moment one of the students have achieved a PhD scholarship, while others apply for positions related to research. Other students find that their publications help them in their search for jobs, while others have been able to build network through MaCE that have been valuable in their continuing career. One student has even established a new school in the UK underpinned by the learning from the project. For the Universities the models developed have been shared and distributed through their networks both regionally, nationally and internationally. MaCE is also spread within the institutions including students as co-researchers, especially on MA level. The MaCE journal will be continued as a way of publishing student’s research, the online course in training the students as researchers as well as the handbook for following up will be further developed in each institutions. Several other institutions nationally and internationally, both HEI and practitioners have taken MaCE further. The results and the experience of MaCE led to new funding through Erasmus+ KAIII project Co-creating through Social Inclusion (COSI.ed) with 11 partners in 5 countries in order to upgrade MaCE to policy level. this means MaCE has a future impact on Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 283926 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITETET I SOROST-NORGE & Country: NO

Project Partners

• VIA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
• THE UNIVERSITY OF CUMBRIA LBG