Learning communities : schools, parents and challenges for wider community involvement in schools

This presentation will focus, for the most part, on a project of parental involvement in a state primary school located in a predominantly working-class area in a Mediterranean country. It will draw briefly on qualitative empirical work carried out with a colleague (Carmel Borg). The presentation gives an account of the socio-economic context of the school, and foregrounds, through empirical data culled from transcribed semi-structured interviews, the voices of parents, administrators, school-council members and teachers. It will be argued that, if this project is to develop into a genuine exercise in democratic participation, parents must begin to be conceived of not as “adjuncts”, but “subjects”. The parents interviewed in this empirical work see themselves as such, and derive confidence from the fact that, at the time of the interview, their claims and recommendations were translating into concrete developments. The second part of the presentation will discuss the issue of parental involvement in schools within the context of a wider discussion on ‘changing the face of the school’ by helping it develop into a community learning centre. Insights from the work of Paulo Freire and his Education Secretariat, when he served as Education Secretary in the Municipal Government of São Paulo, Brazil, and from SMED in Porto Alegre, Brazil, will be drawn upon.peer-reviewe

Keynote Address

Keynote address given by the Clinton Administration\u27s leader on Holocaust-era issues as Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State. The address covered the details of major agreements with the Swiss, Germans, Austrians, and French concerning monetary restitution. The adddress provides an overview of the development of a push in the U.S. to take on the Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust survivors and their heirs

Keynote address

Approved and projected probe mission strategies for the outer planet exploration programs are briefly outlined

Keynote Address

Thank you, professor, for that introduction. It was quite the introduction. It is true my brother started a very successful online diaper company. It was mentioned that we do not have enough followers on our Twitter feed. My brother is a much more clever member of the family. My recollection is that when he started that company, he had a slogan—he and some folks came up with this slogan for the diaper company—which was—and it was emblazoned on a t-shirt which was one of the few perks of being related to somebody who started a company, and I from time to time proudly wear that t-shirt—and the slogan for his company was: “We are number one in number two.

Keynote Presentations

Abstracts of presentations by scientists at the 45th IAMSLIC Conference in Corpus Christi Texas, USA, in October 201

Keynote Address

Keynote address given by Louis Freeh