The ISOTIS Child Study on well-being and inclusion at school

Social inclusion has become a key issue in the academic debate across disciplines and an inescapable priority for the worldwide political agenda, especially in the field of education (UNESCO 2005, 2013, 2014; OECD 2018a, 2018b). Research on the impact of exclusion and discrimination on children and childhood demonstrates that ‘the challenge of future inequalities can only be met through child policies for social inclusion’ (Cook et al., 2018:16). Children are attributed a central role in the social inclusion policy agenda, yet most initiatives to implement this agenda ‘were and are still designed, delivered and evaluated by adults’ (Hill et al., 2004). Children are still not enough allowed to express their viewpoints on social inclusion. The international participatory research ‘Feel good: Children’s view on inclusion’ (authors, 2019) - set within the EU-funded ISOTIS project– examined children’s views on inclusion and their proposals on how to make their school and classrooms (more) welcoming and inclusive. The data were collected through a multi-method and participatory methodology, in preschool and primary schools characterized by strong cultural differences and social inequalities of eight European countries in 2018-2019. The paper will present a cross-country analysis on the main results: what children identified as the main factors promoting and undermining well-being and inclusion, and the transformative factors and proposals to ensure inclusion and well-being. Reflections on the main educational and formative impact of the study on children and teachers will be shortly addressed.