Call for papers: Discrimination of Children in Vulnerable Situations in Education: Current State of Affairs and Strategies for Overcoming It

2022-02-15

Vol. 14, Issue 4 (Year 2024)

Issue editors: Sunčica Macura and Mojca Peček

Ongoing wars and armed conflicts, poverty, the pandemic of Covid-19 and other major crises throughout the world not only result in general insecurity, instability, and human casualties but also produce growing numbers of different groups of children living in vulnerable situations. This term refers to the children whose security, wellbeing and development are at risk due to the lack of care and protection from adults and lack of access to essential services: education, social, and medical care.

Children living in vulnerable situations include migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking children, children of minorities or indigenous populations, working children, children without families, children living in institutions, children living in poverty, children with disabilities, and others. This list is by no means definite.

Many of the abovementioned groups are victims of the prejudices and various forms of discrimination in education, followed by dropout, marginalisation and social exclusion. The purpose of this focus issue is to discuss various aspects and forms of discrimination of different groups of children in vulnerable situations within the education system, as well as the possible strategies for combating and overcoming their discrimination in pre-university education.

Some of the topics that are viewed as relevant in this regard, positioned in the areas of inclusive education, intercultural education, teacher education and education policy, include the following:

  • open discrimination in the education system (denial of enrollment in schools/ kindergartens, denial of participation in classes, etc.);
  • passive discriminations in the education system (lack of additional support for learning and social participation from teachers, lack of protection from peer rejection and bullying, lower expectations, etc.);
  • controversial education policy measures aimed at supporting children in vulnerable situations, which sometimes unintentionally act as a ‘double-edged sword’ (desegregation of so-called Roma schools, engagement of Roma/pedagogical assistants, segregation of children with disabilities in systems of special education, etc.);
  • ongoing overrepresentation of ethnic minorities (such as Roma national minority pupils) in special schools and special classes;
  • individual and social consequences of discrimination in education (detrimental effects on children’s mental health, self-esteem and educational performance; social exclusion and marginalisation, etc.);
  • in-service and preservice teacher education for antidiscrimination and increasing understanding and sensitivity for the education of children in vulnerable situations;
  • monocultural (ethnocentric) orientation in education systems, inferior schooling and exclusion of minority languages and cultures from the curriculum;
  • discrimination of children in vulnerable situations during the pandemic: equal opportunities and access to education resources and online classes.

 

Article submission timeline:

30 June 2023: submission of paper title and abstract with up to five keywords [250 words max.]

30 March 2024: paper submission [between 5,000 and 7,000 words]

December 2024: publication of the focus issue of the CEPS journal

 

Please send the abstract to editors@cepsj.si clearly stating the title of the focus issue.

 

Manuscripts should be from 5,000 to 7,000 words long, including the abstract and reference list. They should be written in UK English. Submissions should be original and unpublished work not currently under review by another journal or publisher.

 

When preparing the manuscript, please follow our author’s guidelines, which are available here: https://cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/about/submissions.