Progetti di ricerca

Growing complexity of societal challenges and issues (e.g. evolution to more community-based support) requires new competencies and knowledge from the field of social studies (Gardner, 2006; D´Cruz, Gillingham, Melendez, 2007). In this evolution a strong focus lies on the strengths and capabilities… Leggi tutto of people themselves. Expertise of people in vulnerable situations (those with fewer opportunities caused by disabilities, socio-economic difficulties and all sorts of discrimination) is seen as third form of knowledge (further knowledge by experience) (Humphreys a kol., 2003; Pawson a kol., 2003; Driessens, Saurama, Fargion, 2011), in addition to academic and professional knowledge in the broad social domain. These evolutions are strongly connected to the development of democracy, citizenship, human rights and social justice, which are also central to higher education (Laker, Naval & Mrnjaus, 2014). Knowledge by experience in the field of social studies has for a long time been undervalued and underestimated (Wilson, Beresford, 2000) and people in vulnerable situations are as well excluded from the process of its co-creation (Fisher, Freshwater, 2014). Although in a recently finished practice-based research project in the social domain we saw that the presence of experts by experience (people in vulnerable situations employed as peer workers, therefore using their experience to help others) in professional teams resulted in an openness to discuss vulnerabilities, barriers, personal experiences of other team members (Van Steenberghe et al., 2020). Applied to higher education context, working together with experts by experience may result in a more reflexive stance of teaching staff around their own lived experience and how it affects their role as an educator, and its integration in their teaching. Still, only the first steps have been taken to embed knowledge by experience in higher education (e.g. Černá et al. 2019; Geregová, Szotáková, 2019). However, there is a momentum to involve considerably more knowledge by experience in (European) social and medical professional field (e.g. Beales and Wilson, 2015; Stefancic et al., 2019; Lennox et al., 2021). It is crucial that higher education reflects these developments and that we seize this momentum. It is therefore desirable to improve access of people in vulnerable situations to higher education, as well as support current students of Social Studies in vulnerable situations in voicing out their own life experiences and incorporating them in their professional life. At the moment there is a mismatch between skills and knowledge students are receiving within Social Studies in higher education and skills and knowledge that are required by current labour market and institutions.