Project summary

ISOTIS will examine the nature, causes and impact of early emerging social and educational inequalities at the local, regional and national level in the context of socioeconomic, cultural and institutional processes.
In order to identify promising strategies to combat inequality and to increase inclusiveness, ISOTIS will address actions at the levels of parent and family support, curriculum and pedagogy development, professional development, inter-sectoral services coordination, and national education policy.

ISOTIS will focus on innovative ways of classroom management and differentiating education to combine non-segregationist (universal) approaches to early childhood and primary education with the need to provide extra (targeted) support to culturally and linguistically diverse children in order to reach equal outcomes.

ISOTIS will investigate the organization of the curriculum, in particular how curricula can reconcile the need for academic skill development in culturally and linguistically diverse children with the promotion of non-cognitive, ‘21st century’, skills such as self-regulation, creativity, collaboration, and citizenship deemed important for optimal participation in education and society.

In particular with regard to providing support to multilingual education and professional development, ISOTIS will explore the potential of ICT-based teaching and learning approaches.

Related to professional development, ISOTIS will examine the effects of the culture and structure of early childhood and primary education provision at the organization (centre, school) level, focusing specifically on organization’s actions regarding diversity and inclusion.

ISOTIS will explore innovative types of governance at the local and national level aiming at improving intersectoral coordination of services to better meet the needs of targeted children and their families, as well as increasing the accessibility of services for culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

A main strategy of ISOTIS will be comparative research: learning from the successes and failures across countries and local contexts. In addition to country-level comparisons of educational inequalities, using existing cross-sectional and longitudinal data bases, ISOTIS will also collect new data on the actual resources, experiences and perspectives of the targeted children and families.

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