The main topic of this thesis is the use of development cooperation as an instrument of foreign policy of the People's Republic of China (China) and the European Union (EU) in Africa. The aim of this diploma thesis was to find out whether the development cooperation policy of China, respectively the EU with African countries, is motivated rather by pragmatic or normative interests. In order to answer this research question, a qualitative content analysis was applied, in which the documents of these two actors were examined. The main theoretical concept of this diploma thesis is the concept of normative power, which served as an indicator of normative interests. In the case of the EU, the hypothesis that the EU would primarily act as a normative power in development cooperation, i.e. that it would be interested in disseminating its norms in the international system, has not been confirmed. The results of the content analysis reveal that pragmatic interests prevail in the development cooperation between the EU and African countries. In the case of China's involvement in development cooperation, the results of the analysis reveal that the main motivations within this policy are mainly normative interests, i.e. the interests of disseminating its norms in the international politics.

This is the story of a project to connect the resources of a university to the struggles of a group of Congolese asylum seekers in the city of Derby. It represents a case study of a whole process: this includes a specific project established to explore how a university might fulfil its stated goals of being closely anchored in the local and regional community; and how it might engage and marshal its resources to provide educational and maybe research opportunities, while giving priority to community-based projects that tackle social disadvantage. The thesis is made up of a number of overlapping elements: there is the story of the project itself, of why the University became involved, and the nature of the interaction with a particular community, as seen through the eyes of some of the Congolese and me the project coordinator/researcher. It includes my struggles to establish a steering committee with the Congolese and the creation of a range of educational/recreational resources to help members of a community manage the difficult, stressful and even traumatic processes of asylum. The project led to the establishment of a community association and various initiatives to dialogically engage with the community and gather diverse narratives. Finally it led to various outcomes leading to what might be a ‘Reconnecting the hearts and minds’ project, that created spaces for story telling for a number of women and men migrants. The project also included an evaluation, which developed at its core, into a collection of narratives chronicling the difficult processes of forced migration, where people experience the pain of family separation, the dislocation of landing in a foreign country. A country whose language was different, whose customs were strange and where the processes of claiming asylum could be alienating, and where racism is experienced. We can call this project and its evaluation a piece of action research with a series of narratives at its heart. The project and evaluation together raise questions about the role of creative activity and narrative in managing painful transitions. There is another story within the bigger one, however, a story of a project coordinator and his relationship with the community and the University of Derby ... of initial enthusiasm followed by marginalisation and the closure of a supportive community development unit in the University; and of the placement of this role, for want of a better home, in the marketing department. This is also a narrative of registering for a doctorate, of being rejected, and of seeking to think through, with the help of others, what a good enough doctorate might entail. The end product has become a process of auto/biographical narrative reflexive research in which the narratives of the migrants intertwine with the researcher’s own; around the themes of dislocation, and of the struggles for voice and agency. The basic threads of the study are of a dislocating experience, and of how resources of hope can be found in creative activity – whether a sewing class, telling stories, fashion shows or engaging in auto/biographical narrative reflexivity. The basic argument has to do with tokenism and the disrespect that can surround university civic engagement as well as how asylum seekers are treated callously more generally; but also how resources of hope can make a difference. There is also the troubling issue of voice in research and whose story really counts; of a white, middle class male engaging with distressed women migrants, and of what might have been a silencing of the women concerned. But through values of commitment, and of learning to listen, the project became more dialogical, as evidenced in the women’s stories.

O trabalho elabora a etnografia de uma relação de parceria entre três grupos populares que trabalham com crianças e adolescentes de seus bairros em Recife e Olinda o Galpão dos Meninos e Meninas de Santo Amaro, o Grupo Comunidade Assumindo suas Crianças e o Grupo Sobe e Desce de Olinda e a agência católica de desenvolvimento internacional com sede em Londres, CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), que os financia desde o final da década de 1980. A parceria é intitulada pelos próprios atores de Projeto Tarrafa, em homenagem à pequena rede usada por pescadores em Pernambuco. A pesquisa valeu-se de extenso trabalho de campo em cada um dos três grupos em Recife e Olinda, junto a educadores populares; no escritório da seção da América Latina na CAFOD em Londres, junto a funcionários que gerenciam os programas do Brasil; e no escritório regional da CAFOD na diocese de Westminster, no norte de Londres, junto a voluntários católicos. O deslocamento pelos canais institucionais que ligavam doadores a beneficiários revelou que a apreensão da singularidade de cada parceria transnacional depende da identificação de quais partes das organizações estão conectadas imediata e mediatamente à parceria, ou seja: a) de que atores específicos os emaranhados institucionais de longo alcance são constituídos; e b) como um ponto distante afeta, mesmo que involuntariamente, outros pontos do mesmo emaranhado institucional. A etnografia explora os efeitos que a conexão através de emaranhados institucionais opera nos seus diferentes pontos. Demonstra-se, em primeiro lugar, como emaranhados institucionais de longo alcance se constituem concretamente através da conexão entre fragmentos de organizações; em segundo lugar, como canais institucionais alimentam reciprocamente as composições de mundo dos atores neles envolvidos; e em terceiro lugar, como são tais composições enleadas que permitem que a relação se sustente. A Tarrafa mantém-se quando a luta dos educadores populares pelos meninos do seu bairro torna-se parte da estratégia dos funcionários de desenvolvimento para a redução da pobreza e violência no continente, e da promessa do Reino de Deus na terra para os católicos doadores. / This work offers an ethnographic account of a long-term partnership between London-based Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and three grassroots organizations, one in Recife and two in its neighbouring town Olinda. The three groups Galpão dos Meninos e Meninas de Santo Amaro, Grupo Comunidade Assumindo suas Crianças and Grupo Sobe e Desce de Olinda have been working with young people in their own neighbourhoods since the late 1980s when the numbers of street children in poor areas of the Greater Recife rose significantly. CAFOD has funded them since the early stages of their work through its connection with a parish priest, as was the case of many partnerships facilitated by priests supporting social movements in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 2000s the partnership underwent changes as a consequence of CAFODs adoption of a programmatic approach, an attempt to push its international work into becoming more result-oriented. Funding was directed to wider programmes instead of individual projects and there were more demands on partners for a higher standard in programme design, implementation and accountability. As part of the process, CAFODs Brazil programme officer encouraged the groups to work more closely in a network which they dubbed Tarrafa, in a poetic reference to a small fishing net used by local fishermen. This research is based on extensive fieldwork, first, among educators and coordinators in each of the groups in Recife and Olinda; second, among the Brazil team staff at CAFODs head office in Brixton, London; and third, among Catholic volunteers in one of CAFODs regional offices, CAFOD Westminster. Following institutional paths that connect beneficiaries to donors proved to be, rather than a movement within a development chain, one through what could be described as institutional entanglements. An ethnographic approach reveals how partnerships are sealed and kept between interconnected teams and departments across different organizations, which may hold closer bonds than they would with other teams in their own organizations. Every development partnership entails institutional entanglements of different shapes and forms, depending on the specific cross-organizational links involved. Thus in order to comprehend a development partnership in its singularity, one is faced with the task of identifying: a) what teams across organizations are connected; and b) how different nodes in these institutional entanglements, often beyond the view of the actors immediately involved in the partnership, affect one another. The entanglements of the Tarrafa network are of two kinds. One is the concrete institutional entanglements which it originates. These contribute to another sort of entangling, that of the symbolic realm of actors connected by these relationships. The Tarrafa network is maintained when the fight of grassroots educators for the children in their neighbourhoods becomes part of the strategy of development experts for the reduction of poverty in Latin America, and part of the promise of Gods Kingdom on Earth for Catholic donors in England and Wales.

O trabalho elabora a etnografia de uma relação de parceria entre três grupos populares que trabalham com crianças e adolescentes de seus bairros em Recife e Olinda o Galpão dos Meninos e Meninas de Santo Amaro, o Grupo Comunidade Assumindo suas Crianças e o Grupo Sobe e Desce de Olinda e a agência católica de desenvolvimento internacional com sede em Londres, CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), que os financia desde o final da década de 1980. A parceria é intitulada pelos próprios atores de Projeto Tarrafa, em homenagem à pequena rede usada por pescadores em Pernambuco. A pesquisa valeu-se de extenso trabalho de campo em cada um dos três grupos em Recife e Olinda, junto a educadores populares; no escritório da seção da América Latina na CAFOD em Londres, junto a funcionários que gerenciam os programas do Brasil; e no escritório regional da CAFOD na diocese de Westminster, no norte de Londres, junto a voluntários católicos. O deslocamento pelos canais institucionais que ligavam doadores a beneficiários revelou que a apreensão da singularidade de cada parceria transnacional depende da identificação de quais partes das organizações estão conectadas imediata e mediatamente à parceria, ou seja: a) de que atores específicos os emaranhados institucionais de longo alcance são constituídos; e b) como um ponto distante afeta, mesmo que involuntariamente, outros pontos do mesmo emaranhado institucional. A etnografia explora os efeitos que a conexão através de emaranhados institucionais opera nos seus diferentes pontos. Demonstra-se, em primeiro lugar, como emaranhados institucionais de longo alcance se constituem concretamente através da conexão entre fragmentos de organizações; em segundo lugar, como canais institucionais alimentam reciprocamente as composições de mundo dos atores neles envolvidos; e em terceiro lugar, como são tais composições enleadas que permitem que a relação se sustente. A Tarrafa mantém-se quando a luta dos educadores populares pelos meninos do seu bairro torna-se parte da estratégia dos funcionários de desenvolvimento para a redução da pobreza e violência no continente, e da promessa do Reino de Deus na terra para os católicos doadores. / This work offers an ethnographic account of a long-term partnership between London-based Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and three grassroots organizations, one in Recife and two in its neighbouring town Olinda. The three groups Galpão dos Meninos e Meninas de Santo Amaro, Grupo Comunidade Assumindo suas Crianças and Grupo Sobe e Desce de Olinda have been working with young people in their own neighbourhoods since the late 1980s when the numbers of street children in poor areas of the Greater Recife rose significantly. CAFOD has funded them since the early stages of their work through its connection with a parish priest, as was the case of many partnerships facilitated by priests supporting social movements in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 2000s the partnership underwent changes as a consequence of CAFODs adoption of a programmatic approach, an attempt to push its international work into becoming more result-oriented. Funding was directed to wider programmes instead of individual projects and there were more demands on partners for a higher standard in programme design, implementation and accountability. As part of the process, CAFODs Brazil programme officer encouraged the groups to work more closely in a network which they dubbed Tarrafa, in a poetic reference to a small fishing net used by local fishermen. This research is based on extensive fieldwork, first, among educators and coordinators in each of the groups in Recife and Olinda; second, among the Brazil team staff at CAFODs head office in Brixton, London; and third, among Catholic volunteers in one of CAFODs regional offices, CAFOD Westminster. Following institutional paths that connect beneficiaries to donors proved to be, rather than a movement within a development chain, one through what could be described as institutional entanglements. An ethnographic approach reveals how partnerships are sealed and kept between interconnected teams and departments across different organizations, which may hold closer bonds than they would with other teams in their own organizations. Every development partnership entails institutional entanglements of different shapes and forms, depending on the specific cross-organizational links involved. Thus in order to comprehend a development partnership in its singularity, one is faced with the task of identifying: a) what teams across organizations are connected; and b) how different nodes in these institutional entanglements, often beyond the view of the actors immediately involved in the partnership, affect one another. The entanglements of the Tarrafa network are of two kinds. One is the concrete institutional entanglements which it originates. These contribute to another sort of entangling, that of the symbolic realm of actors connected by these relationships. The Tarrafa network is maintained when the fight of grassroots educators for the children in their neighbourhoods becomes part of the strategy of development experts for the reduction of poverty in Latin America, and part of the promise of Gods Kingdom on Earth for Catholic donors in England and Wales.

This report presents the first intellectual output (IO1) of the Open School Doors project. IO1 has been jointly produced by the whole project consortium. It summarizes the national policies and initiatives among the partnership concerning the parental engagement / involvement of migrant / refugee parents toward school life. To this end literature resources have been collected and then analysed, with the following aims: a) Profile the target group per country, i.e. outline what is the main audience, its specific cultural characteristics (if any), what has to be taken into consideration for the design of a Training Framework that will match both their learning and cultural needs, etc. b) Elaborate on certain cases of successful parental engagement / involvement, i.e. mainly EU, nationally or locally funded projects. The rationale behind the intensive search of such cases was to identify practices that really work but not to ‘reinvent the wheel’, and have a valid starting point for Open Schools Doors (OSD) Training Framework ‐ no doubt that the amplitude and variety of such programs are good indicators of each country policy and posture towards social inclusion and provision of equal opportunities to education. c) Identify the gaps in the current situation among the participant countries and design a Training Framework that will actively facilitate parents’ engagement / involvement to school life in a tangible and long‐term manner. Methodically authors started with desk research and apart from that empirical data was collected from focus groups which were organized with the view to validating what was theoretically concluded from literature resources by asking the main target audience of the project about the Training Framework specifications and features. To this end the last section summarizes findings of both theoretical research and focus groups, providing thus an overview of what is needed and on which directions OSD didactic approach should focus.:Abstract 6 Introduction and scope 7 1 Conceptualising Home School Interaction 9 1.1 Models of Parental Engagement 9 1.2 ‘Hard to reach’ parents or Hard to Reach Schools? 11 1.2.1 Intersectionality 13 1.2.2 Social Class and home ‐ school interaction 13 1.2.3 Ethnicity and home ‐ school interaction 15 1.2.4 Colonialism / Post‐colonialism 16 1.3 Home school interaction and technology 17 1.4 Infusing home ‐ school interaction with Literacies 20 1.4.1 Home ‐ school interaction as literacy work 20 1.5 Refugee Adults and Digital Literacy 22 1.6 Looking forward: Third Spaces and Multi‐Directional Parental Engagement 24 1.6.1 Multi‐directionality 25 1.6.2 Family Learning 26 1.6.3 Family learning and ‘Digital success stories’ ‐ ideas for future engagement? 27 2 The European dimension 29 2.1 European policies on parental involvement 29 2.2 Facts and figures 30 2.3 European and international experiences: interesting cases of parental involvement projects / practices beyond the consortium partner countries 33 2.3.1 Empowerment of Roma: An interesting practice followed in Croatia 33 2.3.2 Toddler: Towards Opportunities for Disadvantaged and Diverse Learners on Early Childhood‐Road ‐ an EU project 34 2.3.3 ASPIRA Parents for Educational Excellence Program (APEX): An ongoing parental involvement project 37 2.3.4 Involve Parents – Improve School – COMENIUS Multilateral Project 38 2.3.5 Language courses for people of a migrant background: An interesting practice from Sweden 41 2.3.6 More chances with parents: An interesting practice from the Netherlands 42 3 National Experiences 46 3.1 Austria 46 3.1.1 National initiatives, projects and articles in the area of parental engagement/involvement of migrant/ refugee parents 48 3.1.2 Recent initiatives and programmes to further language development 49 3.1.3 Political support for initiatives to engage immigrant parents 50 3.1.4 Lessons learnt 52 3.2 Germany 58 3.2.1 Parental involvement among migrants in German education research 58 3.2.2 Projects on parental involvement 59 3.2.3 Research results on (intercultural) parental work 63 3.2.4 Summary 65 3.3 Greece 67 3.3.1 Good practices and research about migrants’ parental engagement 67 3.3.2 Interventions and projects with migrants’ parents in Greece 72 3.3.3 Summarizing Comments 78 3.4 UK 78 3.4.1 Home school interaction and migrant parents 78 3.4.2 Home School Interaction and Roma families 80 3.4.3 Good practice – cultural acknowledgement 82 3.4.4 ‘Good practice at the grassroots’ 84 4 Focus Groups 85 4.1 Organization and scope 85 4.2 Overview about methodical aspects 86 4.3 Trans European focus group 87 4.4 Focus groups in Austria 90 4.5 Focus groups Germany 93 4.5.1 Focus groups Germany 93 4.5.2 Focus Group “German Parental Association” 93 4.5.3 Focus Group “Teacher Training Programme TU Dresden” 95 4.6 Focus groups Greece 99 4.6.1 Organization 99 4.6.2 Analysis and main findings 102 4.7 Focus groups UK 107 4.7.1 Issues and Themes Emerging from Focus Group Discussions 107 5 Conclusions and recommendations for the design of Open Schools Doors training framework 135 5.1 Leadership 135 5.2 Underpinning principles 136 5.3 Priorities for Teacher development: 139 Bibliography 142 Publications recommended for further reading 151 Appendix 152 A.1 Interview Guide 152 A.2 Feedback Template 154 A.3 Attendance List Template 155