Widespread education

Some experiences, dimensions and concept

Abstract

In the last decades, moving away from the narrow emphasis on the encapsulation of learning in school practices towards a broader perspective that considers the entire community as an ecosystem for learning and flourishing has become relevant in educational sciences. This theoretical paper suggests the concept of Widespread Education as an educational project/action/experience sustained over time that involves an articulation of social, educational and community agents across time through co-design and co-creation processes. The experience of "Open Schooling" in Norway, "Scuola Diffusa" in Reggio Emilia (Italy), the "Comms4learning" project in Catalonia and Galicia, and the NEXES project in Girona (Catalonia), based on the 360 Education perspective, allow us to illustrate this notion. At the same time, we consider a series of dimensions to characterize and analyze these projects/experiences, as well as to delimit the framework of the notion of Widespread Education, that is to say: social (mutual trust, social capital, and interdependence-collaborative culture), cultural (shared purpose and view, ecosystem engagement, shared knowledge, and organizational changes) and material (time, infrastructure, and sustainability) conditions. In all cases, these are actions that involve bridging the formal level, with a pedagogical and ecological-systemic leadership, the non-formal and/or informal one, as well as the involvement of the local political level (municipality) through specific programs that allow the implementation and sustainability of these actions that link the curriculum with elements of the territory