The program is based on theoretical knowledge about the need for an interdisciplinary approach to issues of education strategies and the promotion of social inclusion in education (the group includes experts from the following disciplines: psychology, social pedagogy, sociology, philosophy, pedagogy and defectology).
More specific starting points or the theoretical fields from which the group will proceed in its research are: the theory of globalization and information society, risk society and individualization; theory and research of social inclusion/exclusion and its sociocultural conditioning; social capital theory; theory of different coping styles; cybernetic theory or theory of complex systems; theory of lifelong development; conceptualizing special (educational) needs; theory of orientation to the user’s life field; and contemporary explorations of youth as a period of individualized and risky transition to adulthood.
The objectives of the research will primarily relate to the field of education, sensibly understood as including both institutional education and training (from pre-school education to higher education) as well as informal, non-institutional and community education and socialization, lifelong learning and development, or. extra-institutional/informal characteristics that condition the lack/success of formal education and thus social exclusion and lack/mobility. In this field, the goal of the group will be to strengthen research in these areas, which will enable systematic participation in ongoing international discussions and the resolution of given conceptual dilemmas and the creation of practical solutions in Slovenia.
In the field thus understood, the group will develop the following more specific research contents/goals: analysis of general principles of educational policies/strategies and their evaluation; developing quality criteria in education; developing and evaluating systems and models of undergraduate and continuing teacher education; developing the concept of justice in education, developing models for the operationalization of justice and its measurement/evaluation; researching the functions of education as a reproducer of social inequality and discrimination; study of professionalization processes in professions that appear in the education system; researching models and processes of professional supervision in teaching professions; developing models of pedagogical work with persons with special needs and evaluating the implementation and effects of such models; researching various aspects of social exclusion (cultural and social disadvantage, unemployment, ethnic and other “stigmatized differences”, etc.) and its impact on the individual’s position in the education system; research into individual deviant phenomena (use of drugs with harmful consequences, violence, intolerance, etc.), and models of their (institutional and extra-institutional, e.g. community) treatment; conception and development of social networks (self) help for endangered, marginalized or excluded population groups and the development of evaluation models of such networks.
1/1/2024 – 31/12/2027