Adult education is performed in a changing and diverse society, where learners in and staff of adult education (AE) organisations are heterogeneous groups. In this context, "Diversity Capacities - Improving the Capacities of Adult Education Institutions to Successful Dealing with Diversity (DivCap)” focuses on promoting and supporting inclusion and diversity in AE. This should be reached by providing concrete tools, a curriculum and measures which are piloted in AE organisations. Based on the experiences during the case studies and pilots, guidelines and recommendations will be developed for different target groups. The OBJECTIVES of DivCap are • to increase the awareness about diversity issues at a personal and organisational level, • to introduce concrete measures to promote inclusion and diversity on an organisational level and • to augment personal competences of staff of adult education organisations in dealing with diversity. All those elements intent to promote non-discrimination and to support equal access to adult education organisations. The project focuses on endorsing a positive diversity management (DM) in AE organisations to create stimulating safe and attractive learning environments for low educated migrants and refugees in a way that they feel supported to participate in an often unknown society, which is unfortunately not free of discrimination and intolerance. Furthermore, it also should improve the work environment for and competences of staff and augment the quality in AE organisation. The following ACTIVITIES will guide the process to reach these objectives • Development of a common tool (check list) for analysing diversity in adult education organisations • Development of experimental learning settings (Applied Diversity Awareness Workshops) • Case studies: analysis of two AE organisations in each partner country with the tool • Development of measures for the promoting of diversity in these organisations • Piloting: Implementation of developed measures in two adult education organisations per country • Evaluation of the pilots • Development of guidelines and recommendations for (non)educational staff and managers DIRECT TARGET GROUPS and participants will be educational staff, non-educational staff and managers of AE organisations. During the case studies and pilots, in each of the seven partner countries two organisations and their staff will be involved. INDIRECT TARGET GROUPS will be disadvantaged learners, in particular adult migrant and refugee learners, who are the final users benefiting from the diversity management in the organisations. RESULTS and long-lasting IMPACT: As results of DivCap, 14 AE institutions will have gone through a DM process and their experiences will be documented. The participating AE organisations will be able to analyse their diversity policy in several aspects and develop plans for improvement. The educational staff involved in the diversity management processes will be more aware that their pedagogical and didactical skills reflect their ideas about diversity and equality. Through their involvement, the non-educational staff will improve their skills in supporting an inclusive learning environment. The managers will benefit from the diversity aspect included in their quality management. The need of the addressed target groups is to have comprehensible and easily usable instructions that still leave room for reflection and adaptation for the specific situation. Comparability and systematization of the topics are just as important. DivCap aims to address these needs with the developed products to ensure fare-reaching results and impact. Furthermore, all tools and check lists, generalisable recommendations and guidelines as well as the curriculum for experimental learning will have been tested and are available online. Therefore, organisations beyond those directly participating in the project will profit and gain access to field-tested DM instruments which can be used in different contexts, also after the end of the project.
PROMOTING DIVERSITY ORIENTATION IN ADULT EDUCATION Adult education institutions offer their services in a changing and diverse society. Therefore, students and employees in adult education organisations come from heterogeneous groups. The goal of DivCap was to promote inclusion and diversity in adult education (AE) at two levels: at the personal and organisational level. Support structures were established in AE institutions to enable them to successfully deal with the diversity within their organisations. In this way, a contribution to anti-discrimination and inclusion was made, and equal access to AE offerings was promoted. DIRECT TARGET GROUPS and participants were staff and managers of AE organisations. During workshops, case studies and pilot projects, in each of the 7 partner countries two organisations and their staff were involved. INDIRECT TARGET GROUPS were disadvantaged learners, in particular adult migrant, who were the final users benefiting from the more inclusive access. Furthermore, through a variety of dissemination activities, involvement of stakeholders and key persons in the field of AE and related areas, in total more than 43.600 persons could be reached. Undertaken ACTIVITIES and RESULTS Knowledge of and awareness for diversity issues was enhanced at two levels. At the level of staff in the involved organisations, the goal was to improve the personal competencies of the employees in dealing with diversity. Here, an “Applied Diversity Awareness (ADA)” workshop was tested in three pilot workshops. This ultimately resulted in a modular curriculum. The modular design aimed to meet needs in different settings. The approach of the workshop design is to deepen the cognitive understanding of diversity through concrete personal experiences; learning was initiated through different exercises, the “Diversity Walk” (a field visit) and reflection sessions. Profound work was furthermore completed at the level of the organisation. Here concrete measures to promote inclusion and diversity at an institutional scope were implement. In each country, the partner organisations worked together with a second educational institution that was committed to making concrete progress in enhancing diversity. This means that across Europe 14 educational institutions were involved in total. In the first phase, a special questionnaire was developed to analyse the organisations in terms of their diversity orientation. The questionnaire consisted of several subsections, which cover relevant areas for determining the diversity status. Additional to the English version, the questionnaire is available in Croatian, Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. The questionnaire and further models were used to conduct case studies to analyse the organisations in terms of their diversity orientation. The reports contained the findings of the analysis and recommendations for the implementation of concrete measures. These recommendations addressed different areas such as mission statement, human resource development, employee competences, or public relations. The most important results were summarised and used to create a tool kit for the analysis of an organisation and initiation of change processes. The tool is available in the form of an online tutorial on the website. In the second phase, concrete measures were implemented in pilot projects. The results of the change and learning processes in the 14 AE organisations were documented in reports. In the documentations, the processes were described as well as good practice examples, developed tools, lessons learnt and statements of persons involved. Different categories were pointing to areas where concrete measures were implemented: Human Resources, Structural change, Diversity competences of trainers, Diversity sensitive public relations and Adaption of educational offers. Furthermore, a video series was created, portraying 7 institutions and showcasing how each of them addressed the respective topics and the experiences they gathered on their way to becoming more diverse and inclusive. The experiences and findings in the 14 institutions were then distilled into overarching principles for the implementation and design of diversity processes in educational institutions. Guidelines for diversity processes were developed, as well as recommendations of managers and staff. All reports and handbooks can be found on the DivCap website. The video series was published on the DivCap YouTube channel. This will ensure that AE institutions across Europe, that are interested in introducing diversity orientation, can profit from the experiences gained. All tools and checklist, generalizable recommendations and guidelines as well as the curriculum of the ADA Workshop, were tested and are available for other organisations for transnational use. Furthermore, the structured documentation of the workshops, case studies and pilot projects serve as inspiring examples for other organisations.