“Cultural Bridges: Fostering Intercultural Competences for Educators & Professionals”, this is the title of the 2024 Summer School organized by the University of Verona, in collaboration with the College of Education DePaul University of Chicago.

The Summer School is scheduled in Verona from 10 to 13 July 2024.

Aims and Objectives

The aim of this course is to critically explore interconnections between intercultural competence and community-building within the helping professions.

Questions to be examined include:  Which competences are most appropriate in a time of increasing interconnectedness between people, in which migration is no longer a prerequisite for coming into contact with other ethnic groups?

What impact can the helping professionals’ process of categorizing have in creating (or not) community connection?

How does trauma-informed care help mitigate challenges associated with globalization and increase health and well-being?

The course will have a theoretical as well as a practical aspect. 

• The analytical part will be based on the theory of intercultural competence in education as well as evidence-based modalities for trauma-informed care.
• The practical part will give the students the opportunity to learn and experience models of intercultural competences in the fields of education and counselling including expanding their global perceptions about community-building and their professional roles.

To this end, the summer school aims to provide students with the opportunity to gain in-depth and cutting-edge knowledge on the topics of intercultural competence, trauma-informed care, and evidence-based community practice.

It will do so by inviting high-profile scholars and professionals both national and international backgrounds.

The main objective is to create an international and cross-disciplinary environment of research exchange that can contribute to foster new original projects on the topic.

In addition to this, the Summer School will contribute to the following objectives:

• deepen and investigate some specific professional contexts and practices (related to the world of culture, work, education, care and health), in order to highlight their potentiality and responsibility towards the development of intercultural competence;
• propose tools for the design, analysis and evaluation of community asset building and school-community partnerships
• develop networking opportunities for graduate students and early-career helping professionals
• encourage the construction of an inter-university network on the topics of the Summer School.

How to enroll

You are required to enroll through the online application form on www.csi.univr.it.

After receiving the selection notification, you would be required to pay the course tuition fee of 100 Euros within a specified period, by April 2, 2024.

Upon expiry of this date the course registration fee will amount to 120 euros. The final deadline for enrollment is June 3, 2024.

Please follow the section Fees & Payment on our website for the payment options.

Structure: the class will be conducted in a seminar format and it will require a high degree of participation by both students and instructors.

Our meetings will take a variety of forms: lecture; whole group discussion; small group discussion; student presentation and reflections; and media presentations in various combinations; at various times depending on the agenda for any specific session. 

We encourage all students to feel free to ask exploratory or critical questions, as well as to ask for clarification when they are unsure of the meanings and explanations that are provided.

We also encourage students to do supplemental readings to support the readings for each class session.

We also encourage all students…

• to keep attentive to the dynamics in the classroom;
• to be supportive of each other in making space for all points of views;
• to take seriously and actively engage points of views that may not necessarily agree with their own;
• and to focus not on the struggle for a common ground of understanding but to engage in a supportive exploration as to why our views of the world may differ one from the other—to explore the ground of our difference

The Summer School will extend for 4 days, comprising 32 hours of lectures/seminars/workshops in total.

Each day will be structured into a morning session and an afternoon session.

The morning and afternoon sessions will be chaired by different speakers and separated by a lunch break and coffee breaks in order to foster more informal conversations.

Method: Slots allocated to the instructors include frontal lecture activities, laboratory activities, visits/meetings with stakeholders from Verona territory functional to the objectives of the learning unit.

In addition, the summer school includes moments of discussion and guided reflections (round tables, Q&A sessions, group work).

Site visits to community sites that include interview protocols and video.

Prerequisites: Undergraduate and post-graduate students, early career researchers, professionals such as social workers, educators, psychologists, and teachers. People from different research fields are welcome.

Summer School 2024 – Programme