The final conference of the project Zoom Out: Children’s Literature and Intersectionality, held on 5-6 June in Rome, showcased the main results achieved through this research. Among these, particular emphasis was placed on the work carried out with students and teachers from the participating schools, as well as on the educational materials developed throughout the project, which is led by the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC).
In particular, the pedagogical guide From Page to Social Context. A Guide to Addressing Inequality through Children’s Literature from an Intersectional Perspective was presented, offering tools for working with children’s literature through this lens, together with three recently produced educational animations developed within the project. The conference also included the sharing of experiences from the participating schools, highlighting both the opportunities and challenges involved in introducing these approaches into classroom practice.
The programme featured several roundtables dedicated to deepening the relationship between children’s literature, education, and inequalities. The first, entitled Cultural Transformation Strategies: An Intersectional Lens to Explore Discriminations through Children’s Literature, reflected on the potential of children’s literature to identify and challenge discrimination from an intersectional perspective. The second, Inclusive Educational and Relational Practices: Children’s Literature to Build the Future, addressed inclusive educational and relational practices that use children’s books as a tool for social transformation. In addition, a specific session was devoted to the experiences of participating schools, under the title Zoom Out Experience: What Happened in the Schools During the Project?, where the processes, activities, and learning developed in schools across the four participating countries were shared.
Beyond the public presentation of the project’s final results, which explores how to address inequalities in classrooms through an intersectional approach based on children’s literature, the conference also served to assess its overall impact. With this event, Zoom Out concludes a stage of international collaborative work aimed at fostering a critical reading of children’s literature and providing educational resources to address diversity and inequality from an intersectional perspective. The materials developed during the project will remain available to schools, education professionals, and other stakeholders interested in promoting a more inclusive and critical education.
The in-person meeting, held at the Europa Experience venue in Rome and organised by the Italian partner SCOSSE (Soluzioni Comunicative – Associazione di Promozione Sociale), brought together the project partners to present the results achieved over two years of work and to exchange experiences on the use of children’s literature as a tool to foster critical thinking, inclusion, and awareness of inequalities. The event gathered representatives from ten partner organisations from Spain, Italy, Poland, and Croatia. From Catalonia, participants included the schools La Sínia (Vic) and Joan Miró (Barcelona), the organisation Artijoc, and UVic-UCC, represented by Gerard Coll-Planas, the project’s principal investigator, and by Raquel Reyes and Lorena González-Ruiz, members of the Intersectionality research line of the consolidated research group GETLIHC.
The Zoom Out project is co-funded by the European Union.