The EU and its member states promote inclusion and participation, non-discrimination, equality and equity, transparency and accountability in education ensuring that no-one is left behind, wherever people live and regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, disability, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation and gender identity. When compared to the last 50 years, it is possible to see the change from monocultural to multicultural educational environments, which leads to some barriers both for instructors, students and institutions in terms of organizational and curricular issues. Classrooms of higher education are now filled with students, with different identities, which force the teachers to be more tolerant to new perspectives. JoinMe2 Project aims at equipping Higher Education (HE) instructors with the necessary competence in equality and diversity so that they promote a learning environment that is conducive to learning. If a student feels uncomfortable, unsafe, or not respected, then their chances of success dramatically decrease. As a result, this situation hinders students' ability to fully participate in society as independent and responsible citizens. The project consortium consists of countries that have various concerns about the general topic diversity. It is a known fact that each participant country regarding their cultural heritage, economic situation and educational background, experience diversity in different degrees and levels, which makes this project more relevant. Our project will not only explore different attitudes and solutions, but also aim to apply existing solutions from one country to the problems in another. It is therefore important that this project is carried out across national borders by focusing on the issues of ethnic/racial diversity, gender, sexual orientation, cultural diversity and disabilities. Based on this, 7 institutions from six different countries (Turkey, Belgium, Greece, UK, Poland, Germany) form the consortium of JoinMe2. JoinMe2 will carry out the following project activities between 2020-2023 to achieve its main objective, which is designing and disseminating the Inclusive Education Training Portal. Output 1: Inclusive Education: descriptive and comparative analysis The empirical surveys will help us identify existing attitudes and beliefs towards the concept. The country-specific study texts derived from the collected data will reveal the situation in all partner counties. Thus, the combination of the first two activities will form the basis of the literature portal, which will be the first dissemination platform supporting the realization of the Knowledge Portal. Output 2: Inclusive Education Portal All the activities conducted in Output 2 serve the aim of designing/creating the educational material for the courses to be offered in the training portal. This requires project activities such as literature review and material development based on a common checklist/guideline shared by all partner institutions. It further aims at ensuring and increasing the reliability and validity of the educational material. As one of the aims of the project is to disseminate a free, but high quality inclusive education training, this stage is of crucial importance to the success and planned results of the project. Output 3: Training The activities carried out at this stage form the core of the whole project, which is implementing the inclusive education training by the use of an experimental set-up. Since pre-tests and post-tests will be given to training participants before and after the training, it will serve as a measurement of the effectiveness of the training. Output 4: Knowledge Portal The development of this portal will be the main means for reaching the expected results of the project as this will be the platform in which all the information, documents, reports, project results and further studies on inclusive education will be shared. Inclusive education and the issue of diversity are not topics that are limited to the six countries involved in the project. Neither are they limited to HE. Therefore, the inclusive education training portal will be of most use to teaching and learning practitioners at all levels of education, to teacher candidates, teacher trainers, the programme leaders, heads of schools, directors of Teaching and Learning Centers and/or Centers of Excellence worldwide. Thus, it is expected to have both a national and international impact on the curricular issues in education.
It is true that teacher training schools provide a limited range of courses that specifically address diversity groups. While the Higher Education Council in Turkey has started projects to establish campuses that are sensitive to disabilities, the concept of inclusion does not seem to be fully addressed, as it excludes gender, sexual orientation, and ethnic/racial diversity. As a result, teacher candidates may require additional assistance. Therefore, this project addressed five different areas of diversity; namely, gender, sexual orientation, disability, race and culture. The countries involved in this project are worried about the lack of variety. It is well-known that each participating country, based on their cultural heritage, economic situation, and educational background, was dealing with this issue to varying degrees. This fact made our project even more significant. Our project not only examined different perspectives but also sought to implement successful strategies used in one country to address problems in another country. The final objective which was creating a training portal for inclusion was successfully launched on the JOINME2 web site.
The European education system is experiencing a growing diversity among its students and faculty, reflecting the varied backgrounds and experiences present in our society today. This diversity, and its resulting social and political implications, can pose significant challenges in the classroom for teachers who are unprepared or lack sufficient knowledge and experience in dealing with students from diverse ethnic, cultural, sexual orientation, and disability backgrounds. In contrast to the past 50 years, campuses have transitioned from being homogenous to multicultural, indicating the existence of barriers for educators in terms of organization and curriculum. Consequently, it is imperative for teachers to effectively navigate these differences. Failing to address these challenges can also give rise to social conflicts within society, particularly in terms of equal opportunities that every individual deserves.