Leadership Education for Social Transformation
Supporting Social Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in European Societies

Leadership Education for Social Transformation

by Lucia Korcsogová

Social Inclusion in Practice

.Equality education and the improvement of migrants’ social competence both serve as a potential for social participation.

The possibilities for inclusive education of children with a migration background were presented by Adam Bulandra, a legal advisor, doctor of legal sciences and criminologist. Since 2003, he theoretically and practically specializes in migration and refugee law, focusing on social psychology, sociology and contemporary norm-forming processes. He is a supporter of affirmation of diversity, full integration and limiting the spheres of social exclusion.

Bulandra’s presentation described the most contemporary discourse in reference to equality education and its implementation of principles in Poland. The Polish educational system is centralized, which on the one hand creates equal criteria for everyone to enter the schools, but on the other hand, allows the government to enforce certain ideologies in the curriculum, which results in lost opportunities for new and socially valuable systems of learning.

Empowerment of children serves the purpose of building better societies. Opportunities for equal education are increasingly important for children from marginalized groups. If children do not have the same access to educational tools and services, it is even more difficult for them to overcome structural barriers of poverty.

Bulandra emphasized the importance of such inclusive education, where schools and teachers are both prepared to welcome children with a migrational background, who are facing language, cultural, social and financial barriers. An adequate quality of teaching methods, competencies of teachers, modern laboratories, access to high speed internet and better social participation are all needed to achieve the children´s potential.

Bulandra presented the outcomes of two Horizon 2020 projects, MiCreate and New ABC, dedicated to practices considered to be an essential part of equality education. The research was conducted with teachers, educational stakeholders, as well as children in transition, whose education is particularly challenging. The students in this project were regarded as partners of the research, bringing their own experience to the table to find a solution from a holistic perspective.

The results showed that children with a migration background were abandoned in the education process, since the school curriculum did not allow the teachers to focus on their individual needs. Different teaching techniques and learning tools were implemented to enhance social inclusion, such as games aiming to strengthen the voices of refugee children or adapting educational practices to be more consistent with human mobility.

Ewa Sowa-Behtane‘s and Artur Wołek‘s work focused on the improvement of migrants’ social competence and intergration of Ukraininan migrants into the Polish community. Sowa-Behtane is the founder and president of the Association of Multicultural Families, and an academic lecturer at the Institute of Educational Sciences at Ignatianum. She deals with issues of intercultural marriage, multicultural family and socially maladjusted youth . Arthur Wolek is a system expert, professor of administration and public policies at the Ignatianum Academy in Kraków, associate of the Center for Political Thought in Kraków,

Sowa-Behtane’s presentation focused on the challenges connected with working in a multicultural environment. These challenges include the employees’ and managers’ levels of cultural intelligence, effective intercultural communication, and the efficient and effective functioning in a multicultural team. The study she presented was conducted as part of the Social Integration Leaders project, the model programme for the improvement of migrants’ social competence under the Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development 2014-2020, co-financed by the European Social Fund in the field of social competence of migrants working in intercultural teams. The aim of the study was to analyse the challenges of working in a multicultural environment identified by the respondents of the study conducted among the Ukrainians who live in Poland and work in culturally diverse teams.

The Ukrainian migrants in Krakow are rather an atypical group of approximately 50-80 thousand people (7-9 percent of the city population). The majority of them have a university degree, virtually all have at least a communicative command of Polish, their incomes are lower than the majority population but at a sustainable level, allowing them to reside among the majority population. Even though the Polish culture supplies a handful of anti-Ukrainian stereotypes, they seem to be “dormant” and do not inform the day-to-day relations between Poles and Ukrainians. They nevertheless in general work below their formal competences, they rarely participate in culture and they do not participate in public life.

The greatest challenges faced by this particular group related to multiculturalism in the work environment included issues with communication – given the language and cultural barriers-, and efficient functioning. In order to effectively cope with these issues, Sowa-Behtane argued that managers should be flexible enough to match different management styles to given circumstances. Trainings and workshops could improve the competences of employees and managers necessary to function effectively in this environment, leading to understanding and respecting the cultural differences. Further, it is crucial to increase employees´ language competences and their knowledge about the culture and history of the country where they work and the countries they are coming from.

Further, Wolek’s objective of the practice-oriented research project was to single out which social skills are perceived by migrant Ukrainians of Krakow as their weaknesses and what kind of assistance they would welcome. The result of almost 50 in-depth interviews and focus groups identified the most important shortages among the migrant social competences: lack of assertiveness, lack of skills to increase one’s motivation and inability to react to other people’s strong emotions. This is followed by a low level of motivation to undertake new challenges, shortage of effective self-presentation skills, the inability to react appropriately to conflicts in the work environment and to deal with stress and conflict situations. Surprisingly enough, linguistic and communicative skills were perceived by migrants as non-problematic.

A pilot training-programme has been prepared based on the results of research. It is composed of three modules and several training sessions available to participants. The modules are focused on language skills, entrepreneurial skills and interpersonal skills. The training programme is now implemented, but its evaluation has been postponed due to the pandemic situation.

Conclusion

This conference, dedicated to the topic of social leadership and lessons to learn for educational practice, brought together professional experts from civil society and the Society of Jesus from all over the world, involved in social practice and leadership formation.

As stated by the President of the SCRIBANI network, Patrick Riordan, in his opening address, interdisciplinary encounters with a focus on vulnerability, inclusivity, participation and civic education lie at the heart of the network. We need new leaders dedicated to enhancing civil participation of vulnerable groups, such as migrants. This is a prerequisite for inclusive citizenship in the interest of the whole of society.

But citizenship becomes more difficult to obtain and harder to sustain today, it needs to be earned, Christian Joppke demonstrated. In the current neoliberal interpretation juridical, economic and cultural barriers emerge; you may lose your citizenship due to a traffic offense, you may not apply if you depend on welfare, you need to pass integration tests, …

Citizenship has become less ethnically exclusive since the liberalization of migration policies after the 1960s. Instead you need to vow to a set of liberal values. Under increasing nationalist and populist pressure, it has become more of a privilege to be merited on the ground of individual performance than a right.

Is this the price to be paid for opening up societies? Are we forced to choose between diversity and solidarity?, some of the participants remarked. Is this not in conflict with the Church’s teaching of universal dignity?

Citizenship goes beyond the law and is more than a status; it is a practice that requires agency, Jon Alexander explained. We need to evolve from the pre-war subject, over the contemporary consumer, to the future citizen. Social media may call to protest, but mostly they just amplify like-minded ideas and keep us in the position of passive consumer. What should a post-corona leader look like? In Alexander’s opinion (s)he is an anti-hero, who dares question an unjust situation, act against it and facilitate others to realize their full agency.

The Society of Jesus tries to address these issues through an ambitious international formation programme for lay people developed by the International Association of Jesuit Universities at the Gregorian university in Rome, that many of the attendees have followed. David McCallum explained how it started from the need to rethink the church organization to become more inclusive by sharing insights from Ignatian leadership education.

The coordinator of the Brussels-based European Leadership Programme of the Jesuit European Social Centre for young master students from all around Europe, reflected on lessons learnt and ways of enhancing this leadership formation programme for youngsters from various denominations, including non-religious people.

Former President of the SCRIBANI-network and former European Provincial of the Jesuit Society, Mark Rotsaert gave the advice he took from lived experience: do not limit yourselves to sharing ideas (fairly easy), but try to share your sentiments on working together (which is a lot harder). That is what builds community.