Cities Including Children (CIC)

In the Erasmus+ project Social Inclusion, Education and Urban Policy for Young Children eleven international partners work together to develop social inclusion, intercultural competences and – in an urban perspective – combat discrimination and segregation.  

The six participating cities in this project are all facing growth of population and the need for inclusive policy and education. This includes providing the necessary conditions to support the development and education of young children and their families in the cities.

Objectives

The partners work with several perspectives: research, education, policy and the work field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), and exchange between the partners offers opportunities to find sustainable answers to these complicated issues. The partners also form a City Network where the participating cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Ghent, Ljubljana and Rotterdam exchange ideas and structures about social inclusion – from a political level to work conditions in the work field.

Timeline

The project includes various activities:

• every six months one of the participating cities hosts a transnational meeting, with work sessions, workshops and field visits and investigating themes in which the city in question has specific expertise, for example working with refugee families in Kindergarten, community work in neighborhoods, inter-professional collaboration and urban education;
• in autumn 2017 and autumn 2018 an intensive five-day exchange program is organized for Dutch and Danish students, with the participation of teacher trainers, researchers and professionals from the work field.
• there will be a closing conference in Amsterdam on 23 and 24 May 2019. 

During the three-year period of the project five products are being developed that can be used in educational programs, in the work field and in the development of city policy.

Results

In the first months of the project a literature review was written by researchers from four of the participating partners, in order to establish the degree of already existing knowledge in the field of social inclusion and interprofessional collaboration. Based on this review and a number of case studies, a competence profile for (future) professionals in the educational ECEC field has been developed. The third product consists of a number of films and interviews from the work field in four cities. The fourth product is a framework for an educational program for higher education students that is still in development, whereas the fifth product is a publication on inclusive education and child care for local policy makers, in which the policy and structure of all participating cities and their differences are described.

Read more about the project on www.amsterdamuas.com/citiesincludingchildren