The Limoges Transition Meeting

Dynadiv – Dynamiques et Enjeux de la Diversité (EA – 4246)

Université de Limoges & Université de Tours

France

Cultural Diversity and School-to-Work Transition

Call for Papers

Dynadiv – a French centre for research on the dynamics and stakes of cultural diversity – is launching a research publication on the role of cultural diversity in the transition from education to work.

As personnel’s multicultural competence is gaining interest among organizations (whether profit or non-profit oriented), this research will focus on how the educational system, building on its pupils and students’ cultural diversity, can make multiculturalism an asset for school-to-work transition.

The research programme is comprised of two strands.

Strand 1 will be devoted to analyzing the demand for cultural diversity. It will focus on the organisations’ needs, e.g. in terms of individual characteristics and profiles. The issue of how to measure diversity will be explored and reviewed. It will be researched to what extent diversity is desired at organisational level, and what its demanded structure, components and forms are. Another issue to be investigated is how to typologise the demand for diversity depending on organisations’ characteristics (size, sector, profit/non-profit orientation, location, culture, growth strategy…). It should also be researched why diversity is demanded, and what it is intended for. Also, contributions proposing (ways) to measure the magnitude of needs and to anticipate their future developments, in order to outline the importance, trends and perspectives of the demand for diversity, are welcome.

Strand 2 will be supply-oriented. The aim here is to investigate how, taking into account the demand from organizations, the educational system can turn the cultural diversity of its pupils and students into an asset for strategies promoting successful transition to work. This strand calls for contributions that would aim at designing, mapping and analysing concepts, theories, experiments and experiences, evaluations and assessments, as well as proposing recommendations for policy, strategies, settings and actions, in the field of cultural-diversity-based transition to work. Of particular interest in this strand is the issue of the national models for the recognition of cultural diversity at school. Particularly expected are contributions proposing to feature, map and typologise how educational systems take cultural diversity on board across countries, and comparing how national models perform as regards converting diversity into successful transition to work.

This research project is multidisciplinary and international. Researchers from all countries and from all education-related fields are invited to participate and submit. Proposals will be in the form of a 1000-word (maximum) abstract to be submitted online. The deadline for submission is 30 September 2010. An international selection committee will review all proposals. Authors will be notified of the selection results before December 2010. The draft full papers are expected by 31 March 2011. Authors will receive the reviewers’ final feedback before October 2011. Final version of papers will be due in January 2012. These contributions will form the content of a book to be published in 2012. Also, an international conference gathering all authors will be held in Limoges (France) in 2012. The proposals, written contributions and oral presentations may be in English or French.

Submission procedure

Each proposal will contain:

- A contribution title

- The corresponding author’s name and contact details

- A statement of the research question, clearly outlining how the proposal relates to- and addresses the research programme (200 words maximum)

- The objectives / aims of the proposed research (100 words maximum)

- The conceptual / theoretical/ methodological framework(s) (500 words maximum)

- The findings or expected outcomes (200 words maximum)

- Three keywords

- A short list of references.

Click here to submit a proposal

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