LabSchoolsEurope: Participatory Research for Democratic Education

Launched in December 2019, LabSchoolsEurope brings together a total of ten institutions from five countries across Europe, namely Austria (University College of Teacher Education Vienna, Praxisvolksschule Vienna, Praxismittelschule Vienna), the Czech Republic (Laboratorní škola Labyrinth, Masaryk University), France (Lab School Paris, École des hautes études en sciences sociales), Germany (Laborschule Bielefeld, Bielefeld University), and the UK (University of Cambridge Primary School). The project ends in December 2022 and is kindly funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ program line for Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education (grant no. 2019-1-DE01-KA203-005003).

The work of the LabSchoolsEurope project partners is guided by six main objectives:

1. to document and analyse the research approaches and organisational structures of European Lab Schools,
2. to develop democratic practices for teaching in heterogeneous classroom settings at primary level and to make those available to the public,
3. to facilitate professional learning for educators and researchers within the project, 
4. to support teaching practices from a democratic and pedagogical point of view,
5. to further strengthen the cooperation between schools and universities,
6. to establish a European network for lab schools

In order to achieve these goals, the project meetings at each project location are an essential element of the overall project work. These meetings allow all practitioners and researchers involved to experience the everyday school life as well as to foster an understanding of the pedagogical and research practices at the respective institution. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic temporally put a stop to the in-person meetings, until the project partners were able to meet again in 2022.