TRANSCA is a project that will state what social anthropology can do for education as a sustainable response of the European educational sphere to on-going and new societal challenges such as diversity, immigration, socio-economic disparities and exclusionary politics. TRANSCA is a strategic partnership with the goal of further developing the cooperation between teacher education and socio-cultural anthropology in order to address the crucial issue of social inclusion in schools by implementing e.g. tools for self-reflexivity and hierarchical positionality. TRANSCA aims to promote, and in some countries initiate, the process of transferring relevant aspects of socio-cultural anthropological knowledge into teacher education in Europe by building on existing approaches and experiences and adding new and innovative didactic assessments and practices with regard to core societal issues and social science concepts (such as interculturality, diversity, migration, integration, gender, intersectionality etc.). One core innovation is the translation of reflexive anthropological methods and approaches into the field of teacher education - field excursions, conversation protocols, teacher’s (field) diaries - for generating ethnographic knowledge and insight into societal challenges allow teachers take on the role of learner, to know their students’ lived realities in new and substantial ways. Secondly, TRANSCA focuses on novel ways how teachers (and pupils) can address contested hierarchical structures, which often mark the diversity in the school classes (e.g. minorities within minorities, social class, structural discrimination etc.). The aim is to share current practices and spark new ideas to help anthropology become more widespread in teacher education and consequently in schools. Students are growing up in a highly globalized world, increasingly interconnected by technology, which enhances the need for students to broaden their knowledge on global intercultural dynamics and social inclusion. The overall objectives of the TRANSCA project are the development of innovative didactic strategies, enhancing social inclusion in the educational sphere and thereby sustainably contributing to social cohesion in Europe. The strategic partnership TRANSCA unites relevant institutions from four countries (Croatia, Greece and Denmark with Austria taking the lead) represented by lead organisations focused on socio-cultural anthropology (with expertise in teaching anthropology) and will develop cooperation with Teacher Colleges and other relevant institutions (such as the Teaching Anthropology Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists). TRANSCA will further involve multipliers (future teachers and lecturers at teacher colleges) who will provide feedback and discuss the core Intellectual Outputs of the TRANSCA project: a collection of good and a selection of best practices (Whitebook), a concept manual, the development of new teaching modules for teacher education, a whiteboard animation and an online lecture series. These intellectual project outputs will be uploaded to the digital project platform, to provide a sustainable knowledge database including methods and networking resources beyond the end of the funded period of the TRANSCA partnership. TRANSCA will evolve along a clear schedule including several types of meetings in all the participating partner countries: transnational project meetings, LTTA-Meetings, skype meetings and a final conference. The accurate realization of TRANSCA will be ensured by “critical friends”, external evaluators (working in the interface between teacher education and anthropology), the management and a risk management team lead by the Austrian partner/project applicant.
TRANSCA - Translating Socio-Cultural Anthropology into Education, was an EU project coordinated by the University of Vienna and carried out from September 2018 until August 2020. TRANSCA tried to demonstrate the importance and usefulness of social anthropology for the practice of education. In particular the project sought to address the European educational sphere and current endeavours to frame education in terms of a response to on-going and new societal challenges such as diversity, immigration, socio-economic disparities and exclusionary politics. The project's general focus is on providing teachers (and pupils as the indirect target group) with novel ways of how to address contested hierarchical structures, which often mark the diversity dynamics in the classroom. The general aim was to share current practices and new ideas to help anthropology become more applicable and widespread in teacher education and consequently, in schools. The coordinators represented relevant academic institutions from four countries (Croatia, Greece and Denmark with Austria taking the lead) focusing on socio-cultural anthropology (with expertise in teaching anthropology). In addition, the coordinator established cooperation with Teacher Colleges (Vienna & Zadar) and other relevant institutions as well as multipliers (future teachers and lecturers at teacher colleges) who provided feedback to the project’s core Intellectual Outputs. Several transnational project meetings took place during the course of the project in order to intensively discuss both the content, method and other relevant aspects of the approach. In addition, we had the opportunity of discussing the practicability and feasibility of the planned IOs with selected experts during LTTA meetings in Zadar and Vienna. The Intellectual Outputs published on the project’s web-platform www.transca.net comprise: • A collection of best practice projects focusing on educational anthropology from the following countries: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina; • A concept manual, which provides teachers with key anthropological concepts and methods relevant for the educational context. These have been selected primarily from the field of anthropology of education while considering their usefulness for reflecting on particular educational questions and issues; • New teaching modules for teacher education, aiming at introducing teachers to anthropological approaches and methods in the study of educational lifeworlds and practices. The primary goal is to encourage teachers to explore and reflect upon their professional lives, endeavours and practices in new ways. Ethnography-based didactic approaches are used in these modules as they are apt tools for conveying an understanding of the embeddedness of educational practices in particular and changing cultural, socio-economic and political configurations. Working comparatively with ethnographic cases from different cultural contexts, teachers can explore ways of thinking which make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. • A whiteboard animation on the topic "worldmaking" (including didactic implementation), accessible via an internet platform functioning as a knowledge database. The platform is available in five languages and offers users access to methods and networking resources available beyond the end of the funded period of the TRANSCA partnership. • Interviews with well-known experts who reflect on the project and its content as a sustainable and unique resource. All intellectual outputs are online since the End of August 2020: www.transca.net and will be updated the team based at the University of Vienna. The project was a strategic partnership (Erasmus+) aiming to further develop the cooperation between teacher education and socio-cultural anthropology in order to address the crucial issue of social inclusion in schools by implementing e.g. tools for self-reflexivity and hierarchical positionality. It aims to promote, and in some countries initiate, the attempt of jointly transferring concepts and ideas of socio-cultural anthropological knowledge into teacher education in Europe. To achieve these aims, the project builds on existing approaches and experiences and advances these with new and innovative didactic assessments and practices with regard to core societal issues and social science concepts (such as interculturality, diversity, migration, integration, gender, intersectionality etc.). In this context, the translation of reflexive anthropological projects, methods and approaches into the field of teacher education is a core endeavour. These innovative pedagogical practices are meant to potentially generate ethnographic knowledge and insights of societal challenges that allow teachers to take on the role of a learner, to know their pupils' lived realities in new and substantial ways.