Fp6 Project on Social Cohesion at the Faculty of Education The Faculty of Education at the University of Malta through Dr Suzanne Gatt, is a partner in the project INCLUDE-ED, an Integrated Project which aims to analyse educational strategies and promote social cohesion.

The INCLUDE-ED project, with a budget of over 5 million euros, is funded under the FP6 Programme “Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-based Society”. The project started in November 2006 and is 5 years long. It aims to analyse education strategies that contribute to overcome inequalities and promote social cohesion, particularly focusing on vulnerable and marginalised groups. Europe needs to identify these strategies that will in turn be used by policy makers, education managers, teachers, students and families, and contribute to shape new policies to meet the Lisbon goals. To this end, INCLUD-ED will:
1) Analyse the characteristics of the school systems and the educational reforms that are generating low rates of educational and social exclusion and those that are generating high rates (PROJECT 1);
2) Analyse components from educational practices that are decreasing the rates of school failure and those of the practices that are increasing them (PROJECT 2);
3) Study how educational exclusion affects diverse areas of society (i.e. employment, housing, health, political participation) and what kind of educational provision contributes to overcome it (PROJECT 3);
4) Investigate how the educational exclusion affects diverse sectors of society, particularly the most vulnerable groups (i.e. women, youth, migrants, cultural groups, and people with disabilities), and what kind of educational provision contributes to overcome their respective discrimination (PROJECT 4);
5) Analyse the mixed interventions between educational policy and other areas of social policies and identify which are making steps forward to overcome social exclusion and build social cohesion in Europe (PROJECT 5); and
6) Study communities involved in learning projects that have developed the integration of social and educational interventions that contribute to reduce inequalities and marginalisation, and to foster social inclusion and empowerment (PROJECT 6).
The University of Malta has a significant role in the project with Dr. Gatt as leader for project 6. INCLUD-ED is being coordinated by CREA (Centre of Research in Theories and Practices that Overcome Inequalities) based in Barcelone, Spain and involves 15 partners. For more information about the project, please visit http://www.ub.es/includ-ed . All documentation and reports produced by the project will also be available online.