WERA Task Forces are established by WERA Council to address education research or research policy issues where WERA may wish to disseminate information or present a view about sound research policy. Task forces undertake work under their charge under the direction of co-chairs who report to WERA Council.
Current Task Forces
Global Research in Extended Education
- Website: https://www.ewi-psy.fu-berlin.de/en/v/wera-irn-extended-education/index.html
- Chair: Prof. Dr. Marianne Schüpbach, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Description
In learning societies, there has been an increase in out-of-school and extracurricular learning in childhood and in adolescence compared to the past. The last 10 to 20 years have seen numerous efforts to expand institutional learning and care opportunities to supplement or complement (traditional) schooling in almost every modern country in Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia.
Nowadays, children and adolescents enroll in various public or private forms of arrangements outside regular school hours. Children may participate in school- or community-based programs, forms of private tutoring – also called shadow education – or after-school programs, like art courses as well as extracurricular activities at all-day schools, called in the following ’extended education’. Alternatively, children may time in services that provide opportunities for play and leisure pursuits to support social and emotional learning.
Extended education represents a multitude of programs/activities/offerings, among other things, that provide children and adolescents with a range of supervised activities designed to encourage learning and development, for children to be supervised and safe, and extending the regular school day. Some of them pursue general goals, such as psychological well-being and social competence, others focus on specific educational outcomes and goals. (Schuepbach, 2018, p. 135)
The WERA Task Force Global Research in Extended Education is chaired by Prof. Dr. Marianne Schüpbach. An Executive Committee will be formed and the Chair will be a member. The Task Force originated from the WERA IRN Extended Education and some members originate from this IRN. However, this Task Force is more specifically focused on global research in the described area of extended education than the IRN. The Task Force is an inclusive space in which all interested researchers in the field extended education with the similar strategies and objectives can participate.
Global Challenges and Education
Description
The convenor of the WERA Task Force ‘Global Challenge and Education’ is Liesel Ebersöhn with co-convernors Sergey Kosaretsky and Ingrid Gogolin. Task Force members include : Joanna Madalińska-Michalak, Rocio Garcia-Carrion, Geovana Mendonça Lunardi Mendes, Harkaitz Zubiri, Gil Noam, Daniela Véliz Calderón and Bee Leng Chua.
Except for the last two members, all others were able to participate in a first virtual meeting on 18 August 2020 with the following agenda points. The Task Force agreed on the principles stated in the concept note that served at the May 2020 Council meeting, especially that:
- the Task Force will coordinate strategies to distil and disseminate education knowledge in the WERA community which can serve as resource to advise and assist the global education sector to respond to global shocks (such as COVID-19);
- the COVID-19 challenge is viewed as an exemplar of global challenges which requires coordinated and evidence-based systemic and education responses;
- the focus is on a process resilience stance of evidence-based pathways (interventions) that support positive outcomes (not on generating lists of risk factors, explaining what can’t be done, and describing negative outcomes predicted when disturbance occurs);
- the intended social impact of activities (who and what is to be influenced) need to be evident in the objectives and strategies decided on: how can the system use the lesson?