Utilizing the European Programmes “ Erasmus + ” for the Development of Cultural Education : The Case of Western Attica , Greece

This paper presents a small-scale survey that records the opinions of the educational community (pupils, parents and teachers) of Western Attica (Greece), an area with acute social problems and conditions, about the importance of Cultural Education, with the purpose of incorporating it into the daily activities of high-schools. This survey has been conducted within the framework of the European Programmes “Erasmus+” that support educational initiatives, regarding the mobility of students and teachers in the European Union’s member states and other associated countries, with the purpose of training in issues of common interest. The relevant activities of the overall methodology that is presented herein include the training of high-school teachers in Cultural Education issues. This training aims at achieving the strategic goal of the local educational administration, which considers Cultural Education as a prime tool for confronting social problems in school communities, worldwide.


Introduction
The Secondary Education Directorate of Western Attica (henceforth WASED), Greece, is a local public agency of educational administration that supervises 46 high-schools (Junior, General, Vocational and Special Education), scattered in five municipalities of Western Attica.WASED has the overall responsibility to manage the operation of these schools and to implement the existing national educational policy by applying the educational innovations that are necessary, given the particular features of this area.
According to the latest General Census (ELSTAT, 2011), Western Attica has a permanent population of 161,000 people, accounting for 4.20% of the population of the entire Attica Region.In recent years, a number of severe economic and social problems have been identified, such as illiteracy and social exclusion, while a higher unemployment rate is recorded than in the whole of the Attica Region, ranging from 18.6% to 29.2%, depending on the particular municipality.As the economic crisis and the austerity policy hit primarily the poorest and most economically lagging regions, the current situation in Western Attica is tragically worse.There is also a marginalization of vulnerable social groups (immigrants, Roma, repatriates, disabled people and women).In particular, according to the "National Roma Strategy Framework 2012-2020" (Attica Region, 2015), the total number of Roma in Western Attica is about 3,000 consolidated persons, accounting for 1.83% of the total permanent population.The local municipalities and the Council of Europe estimate also that 25,000-30,000 Roma live occasionally in Western Attica.In addition, Western Attica was the third largest area in the country with the largest number of Greek repatriates from the countries of the former Soviet Union in 1989-2000, after Thessaloniki and Athens (Kamenidis, 2001).Vulnerable social groups also include Evening Junior High-School and Vocational High-School students, since they are adult workers struggling to finish their studies.Students of the two Special Education Schools are also fighting against marginalization and social exclusion.
Environmentally, Western Attica is a heavily aggravated area, due to the fact that the largest landfill site of Attica is situated there, adjacent to two more non-operating landfills.More than 1,570,000 tons of urban wastes per year are disposed there, while the processing plant can manage approximately 1,200 tons per day (Salvati & Mavrakis, 2014).Moreover, the criminality in the area is particularly high.At the same time, the dropout rates are very high (close to 20%, according to the latest data from the Greek Ministry of Education), exceeding well both the national Published by IDEAS SPREAD average (13.1%) and the main national goal under the Lisbon strategy of European Union (EU) to reduce drop-out to 9.7% by 2020.Contrary to the rest of the country, there has been a local increase in dropout over the last 20 years, apparently due to the demographic changes that have taken place in the area.
Within the former murky social and environmental context, pupils attending WASED schools feel that they have no prospects of professional rehabilitation.It's easy to get caught up in a delinquent attitude that plagues the society they live in.Their teachers, despite the increased problems, are struggling daily to provide the necessary education to their pupils.They work with parents who have a low level of education and face financial and social problems.The Directors and scientific staff of WASED have developed a strategic plan for interventions, since the school year 2014-15, to address in a holistic manner the educational challenges posed by the wider social and natural environment in the school communities (Papakitsos et al., 2017a).This strategic intervention plan consists of a method that includes actions both locally and internationally (see next section).
The scientific guidance and coordination of these interventions is conducted centrally in WASED by its Director, a couple of administrative personnel and especially a scientific team of six experts.This team consists of two experts in Vocational Guidance, one in Counselling, one in Health Education, one in Environmental Education and one in Cultural Education.These experts are experienced teachers with postgraduate qualifications in their respective duties, at least.

The Activities of the Scientific Team
With the help of the afore-mentioned scientists, WASED implements actions focusing on relevant activities, since it is shown in contemporary bibliography (already cited) that they contribute to the development of motivation for learning, continuing studies and consequently reducing dropout, while limiting incidents of antisocial or delinquent behavior of pupils.These issues particularly concern schools in the area of Western Attica, facing complex social, economic and environmental problems.In this context, specific objectives are set for teachers' training to effectively tackle career and self-perception issues in a creative manner, to develop counselling skills and empathy for pupils, to recognize the pedagogical value of pupils' engagement with culture and to encourage their participation in cultural activities.
Within the framework of the strategic intervention planning, the scientific team implements a number of activities that include annually: • over four hundred (> 400) visits to the schools of WASED; • organizing and conducting of more than forty (> 40) training seminars and informative events; • conducting hundreds (700-1,100) of personalized counselling and vocational guidance sessions; • the scientific support of at least 150 school extracurricular programmes, involving about 300 teachers and more than 3,500 pupils from a total population of about 11,000.
The aims of the above activities focus on developing learning motivation, improving the pedagogical climate of the school, creating a supportive learning environment and actively participating in cultural programs, among others.The beneficiaries comprise the participating teachers that improve their knowledge in topics of counseling and culture, the pupils that are the final recipients of all the improved and modern educational and pedagogical services and generally all members of the school community (including parents), since ways to improve the pedagogical climate of schools are emerging.
However, from the observed scale of activities and numbers it is obvious that the small scientific team of experts is not sufficient enough to achieve and disseminate the results to all schools in the area, with the frequency required.As a consequence of the above assessment and in the context of strategic planning interventions, it was decided centrally that a pilot integration of all activities should be attempted in a single framework, through the possibilities offered by the EU "Erasmus+" programmes.

"Erasmus+" Programmes
According to the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (www.iky.gr/en), as the national managing authority of the Erasmus+ programmes, mobility actions allow schools to give opportunities and incentives to their educators to acquire new skills, in relation to the needs of their schools.Such key action is "KA101 -Mobility of School Education Personnel", which is related to the learning mobility of schools' education staff and offers the opportunity to them of having a learning experience in another country.The participants, through the activities offered by the learning mobility plans, have the opportunity to improve their knowledge, skills and abilities.
Therefore, in the framework of KA101 basic action, at the beginning of 2017, WASED had submitted a proposal for a two-year programme entitled: "The role of vocational guidance, counselling and cultural activities in improving the educational climate of the school".The proposal included the training of teachers from five (5) selected high-schools of Western Attica (two Junior and three Senior General High-Schools) in the proposed subjects.This proposal was approved in May 2017 with an approved budget of € 35,462.00(IKY, 2017), for the school-years 2017-19.The approval of this programme covered directly two major concerns of WASED that were mentioned at the beginning of this section (2.Method), namely those referring to teachers training in innovative methods and schools' funding.
By the end of the programme, the trained teachers would be expected to act within the wider school community of Western Attica, to assist the scientific team in achieving the goals of the strategic intervention plan.Therefore, they would help to address the area's specific needs more effectively, namely improving the pedagogical climate, reducing the incidence of delinquency, preventing problems and malfunctions (school violence, conflicts, aggression) and linking up School and Society.In particular, some of the objectives of this programme by category of beneficiaries are the following.For teachers: • to improve their motivation for professional development and their pedagogical and communicative skills; • to reduce dropout by creating an attractive student-centered school environment that positively contributes to active learning and learning motivation; • to develop skills for creating a school that accomplishes the inclusion of all pupils without discriminations, accepting diversity and different thinking; • to recognize the pedagogical value of pupils' engagement with culture and encourage their participation in cultural activities, so that pupils can cultivate creativity and critical thinking, learn about culture in its various manifestations and the cultural legacy of their place of origin, while developing respect for cultural diversity; • to enrich their teaching methodology and techniques in cultural courses, with examples from other European school systems; • to promote a collaborative culture of their school with parents and the local community, so that a substantial and fruitful collaboration with the pupils' families can be put into practice.
For pupils: • to acquire learning incentives and dedicate themselves to learning processes, attendance and school performance; • to familiarize themselves with culture in various manifestations, cultural heritage and engage in cultural activities, such as theater performance, cinema, music, dancing etc. that work proactively to undesirable school behavior; • to have access to and active participation in the cultural activities of their school and not in offending activities outside the school community; • to improve their knowledge of European cultures and to acquire empathy, self-esteem and active participation; • all of them, even those whose family's backgrounds belong to vulnerable groups (Roma, immigrants, repatriates), have opportunities to be creative with emphasis on cultural diversity and to express themselves rationally and critically.
For the schools in general, to achieve: • their participation in networks of international contacts and educational partnerships that have good practices for meeting the same needs; • the exploitation of new technologies and their practical applications in their everyday life and culture; • an effective operation and improvement of school activities in the short and long term.After the completion of the programme's main activities, a Project Evaluation Report is prepared, which includes evidence of its performance and effectiveness.In this respect, a small-scale quantitative survey has been conducted with three questionnaires, one for each group of persons involved directly or indirectly (teachers, pupils and parents), for presenting their views on the issues of training in cultural or other topics.A partial processing of the responses will be presented in the next section, regarding the opinions about Cultural Education.In addition, emphasis is put on the lessons learned by teachers, also highlighting the best practices that can be used in the daily operation of schools.

Results
The activities of the current two-year programme had been initially scheduled in two phases.The first phase, during the school year 2017-18, comprised preparatory activities that included the training of teachers and a pilot training of some pupils in innovative subjects related to the programme, the recording of opinions of the participants (pupils, parents and teachers) for the training topics and the creation of an internet infrastructure.This phase has been completed.The second phase has been scheduled for the school year 2018-19, where the application of innovative practices will be introduced to the daily activities of the participating schools.
Consequently, an internet platform of the programme has been created, for facilitating the communication of the participants and for disseminating its outcomes to the entire educational community of Western Attica (Foulidi et al., 2017a).Two training activities have been conducted with pupils, in two different schools.The first one concerned the utilizing of De Bono Six Thinking Hats method for making educational decisions (Papakitsos et al., 2017c), while the second one studied the perspectives of cultural topics in Education and employment (Foulidi et al., 2018b).A small-scale quantitative survey has been conducted, recording the opinions of pupils, parents and teachers from the participating schools about the training topics of this programme (see subsection 3.1), before the actual implementation of innovative teaching practices at the participating schools.The same survey is planned to be repeated after the completion of the programme's teaching activities (May 2019), for recording any differences in the opinions of the participants, who will evaluate the whole process.Finally, the results of the teachers' training have been summarized by the scientific team of the programme (see subsection 3.2), after having interviewed the participating teachers and processed their formal concluding reports for every activity that they have participated.

Survey of Participants' Opinions
For recording the opinions of pupils, parents and teachers from the participating schools about the value of Cultural Education, three questionnaires were designed, one for each category of participants.Each questionnaire included a number of initial questions about demographics (sex, age, school, grade, number of siblings, educational level of parents etc.) and a number of questions about Cultural Education.These questionnaires were filled in voluntarily and anonymously via internet forms and differed according to the category of participants (pupils, parents and teachers).The answers have been recorded in a five-scale scheme.
The first questionnaire about Cultural Education to be presented is that for pupils.Apart from demographics, it consists of six questions that are listed along with the respective answers in Table 1.It was filled in by 315 pupils (N = 315).The participating pupils declared that they are adequately interested in cultural issues, by responding to question Nr. 1 (Moderately -Very: 72.4 %).They generally discuss issues related to cultural events with their parents and teachers, by responding to questions Nr. 2 (Sometimes -Very frequently: 58.4 %) and Nr. 3 (Sometimes -Very frequently: 51.5 %) respectively.A significant percentage of them have already participated in cultural activities of their school at least once, by responding to question Nr. 4 (Sometimes -Once: 71.1 %), while approximately half of them have attended cultural events at least once, either inside or outside their schoolcontext, by responding to questions Nr. 5 (Sometimes -Once: 48.9 %) and Nr. 6 (Sometimes -Once: 51.8 %) respectively.
The recorded interest of pupils in Cultural Education is not regarded as representative by the scientific team of this programme, considering the total pupils' population of the five participating schools, being around 1,000 teenagers.The high percentage of pupils (71.1 %) having already participated in cultural activities of their school at least once (question Nr. 4) indicates that this particular category of them were more motivated to participate in this survey than the rest of their classmates.Consequently, the future efforts of the teaching staff should be focused on making Cultural Education attractive to those pupils that are not interested in or aware of the educational benefits of participating in cultural activities.The second questionnaire about Cultural Education to be presented is that for parents.Again excluding demographics, it consists of five questions that are listed along with the respective answers in Table 2.It was filled in by 183 parents (N = 183).The participating parents declared that they consider important for pupils to be informed about cultural issues, by responding to question Nr. 1 (Moderately -Very: 94 %).They generally discuss issues related to cultural events with their children, by responding to question Nr. 2 (Sometimes -Very frequently: 83.1 %), while most of them have encouraged their children to participate in cultural activities of their school at least once, by responding to question Nr. 3 (Sometimes -Once: 84.1 %).A very large percentage of them have attended cultural activities of their children's school at least once, by responding to question Nr. 4 (Sometimes -Once: 81.4 %), considering them useful for their children almost entirely, by responding to question Nr. 5 (Moderately -Very: 97.3 %).The third and last questionnaire about Cultural Education to be presented is that for teachers.Once more besides demographics, it consists of four questions that are listed along with the respective answers in Table 3.It was filled in by 44 teachers (N = 44).All of the participating teachers declared that they consider important for pupils to be informed about cultural issues, by responding to question Nr. 1 (Moderately -Very: 100 %).They definitely encourage their pupils to participate in cultural activities, by responding to question Nr. 2 (Sometimes -Very frequently: 93.2 %), while they also seriously consider participating themselves in such activities, by responding to question Nr. 3 (Moderately -Very: 93.2 %).Finally, they consider cultural activities useful for their pupils entirely, by responding to question Nr. 4 (Moderately -Very: 100 %). .Finally, all of the teachers consider the cultural events of school to be useful for pupils (Table 3, question Nr. 4: Moderately -Very = 100 %) and most of the parents accordingly (Table 2, question Nr. 5: Moderately -Very = 97.3%).The opinions of both teachers and parents about the importance and usefulness of cultural activities at school are consistent respectively, since they present the same or extremely close percentage values per category of participants.The opinions of pupils about the usefulness of cultural events/activities can be only measured indirectly in this study, by their percentage of attending cultural activities that take place at school in the afternoon (Table 1, question Nr. 5), mainly because pupils do not like to visit school in afternoon hours, unless something important to them is happening (Appendix C).

Summary of Teachers' Training
A small group of teachers from each participating school of the programme has attended a week of training at various schools and training institutes in five EU's countries (Cyprus, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain).A formal part of these activities was to prepare a training session/seminar for their colleagues at their school and a concluding report, presenting whatever they have learned along with their impressions.Regarding Cultural Education, the results of their training has been the following, as recorded by the scientific team: • All the participating teachers have updated their knowledge and improved their teamwork, adaptation and initiative skills, required to successfully carry out their tasks, in order to implement a method of teaching that addresses the problems of delinquency, exclusion and dropout.• The training of teachers in personalized teaching, adapted to different learning levels and different cultural backgrounds, is expected to improve the pedagogical conditions in school and to ensure an adequate attendance of pupils and completion of secondary education.In addition, the connection between schools and their local community and families is expected to improve the attitudes and behaviors adopted by pupils, in accordance with the universal humanitarian values and concepts of European citizens, including the acceptance of European identity features.• The knowledge acquired by the teachers, related to problem-solving at school, will be exploited to solve problems democratically and to defend human rights, therefore addressing the increased problems of delinquency in the area of Western Attica.• By attending work in other European schools, the teachers can follow effective methods and techniques that their colleagues use, for the preparation and implementation of cultural activities.They can exchange knowledge and experience, draw conclusions and good practices from other schools that have the same problems as theirs.
Concerning WASED, the trained teachers of the initial team will pass on their knowledge to their colleagues in any other school of the area, through seminars and exemplary teaching sessions.Thus, a team of qualified teachers has been created, who will be able to face the problems prevailing in the schools of Western Attica, such as dropout, poor performance and learning reluctance, in the short and long term.

Conclusion
By utilizing the educational potentials that are available through the EU's "Erasmus+" mobility programmes, an educational community may acquire significant benefits, especially in the case of areas that face complex social and environmental conditions, like Western Attica.Through the attendance and training of teachers at EU schools and training institutes, the teachers of WASED are recording good practices for helping their students to be creative and express themselves at school and also gain professional prospects.In addition, they are developing pupils' management skills and communication with their family context, even if the latter face particularly strong economic and social problems.The teachers are also developing conflict management skills, ability to cooperate with local social/welfare and cultural stakeholders; they are improving existing communication skills, while developing cooperative skills with their colleagues and the ability to cultivate a democratic spirit in the interpersonal relationships between colleagues.They are practicing new teaching methods and tools, such as Published by IDEAS SPREAD collaborative experiential learning.They are making better use of existing infrastructures and the available cultural or other educational services, thus promoting the goals of Cultural Education for the benefit of all students in the area.

Table 1 .
Questions about Cultural Education and respective answers of pupils (N = 315) 1.How important do you consider your information on cultural issues?

Table 2 .
Questions about Cultural Education and respective answers of parents (N = 183) 1.How important do you consider for pupils being informed about cultural issues?

Table 3 .
Questions about Cultural Education and respective answers of teachers (N = 44) 1.How important do you consider for pupils being informed about cultural issues?In comparison wherever similar, all of the teachers consider important for pupils to be informed about cultural issues (Table3, question Nr. 1: Moderately -Very = 100 %), most of the parents (Table2, question Nr. 1: Moderately -Very = 94 %) and too many pupils (Table1, question Nr. 1: Moderately -Very = 72.4%)accordingly(Appendix A).Teachers encourage a bit more their pupils to participate in cultural activities (Table3, question Nr.