Plural schooling and critical pedagogies
WG1 focuses on circular cities, sustainability, art forms, and critical pedagogies, advancing a transformative approach to education where learning, expression, and action are intimately linked to social and ecological justice. Circular cities are understood beyond the economy, encompassing cycles of knowledge, relationships, and regeneration, where participatory learning and collective action create resilient urban ecologies. Sustainability integrates ecological awareness, environmental justice, urban agriculture, and decolonial approaches, embedding action-based learning into everyday practices. Art is central, functioning as a pedagogical and transformative tool that fosters ecological literacy, intercultural dialogue, and inclusive participation, while amplifying marginalized voices. Critical pedagogies guide reflection, dialogue, and praxis, challenging dominant paradigms and empowering learners to co-create knowledge and social change. Across these dimensions, WG1 envisions education as an interconnected process where creativity, care, and action converge to cultivate equitable, regenerative, and socially engaged communities.

Authors
Dr Carla Inguaggiato

Plural schooling and critical pedagogies
This paper examines the formulation of pluriversal pedagogies in times of ecological collapse. Grounded in a sense of belonging to the Earth, these pedagogies seek to politically activate relationality and interdependence among beings, knowledges, and territories (Escobar). Drawing on the intersection of popular education (Freire) and ontological pluralism (Viveiros de Castro), the presentation explores concrete experiences in Latin America—especially Brazil—where popular and Indigenous movements mobilize public schools, universities, and communities within territories of resistance. These initiatives include agroecological collective practices (mutirões), seed exchanges, and interdisciplinary workshops that connect teacher education, playfulness, and ancestral knowledge. Such experiences underscore the urgency of rethinking education through ontological pluralism, recognizing diverse ways of thinking and extra-modern collectives as producers of theory. Teaching and learning are thus understood as community-forming practices. By articulating situated and critical pedagogies, this contribution aligns with the focus of WG1, fostering pluriversal dialogue and educational ecologies from the Global South.

Author
Ana Paula Morel, Fluminense Federal University, Brazil

Urban Sustainability and Circular Arts: Reimagining Etno Selo as a Cultural-Ecological Educational Platform in Skopje, North Macedonia
This proposal examines how artistic and performative practices can advance urban sustainability at Etno Selo, a cultural complex on the urban edge of Skopje, North Macedonia. Reimagined as a pedagogical space, Etno Selo becomes a “living laboratory” where site-specific art, eco-pedagogy, and traditional knowledge foster engagement with circular natures, emphasizing material cycles, ecological processes, and cultural continuity. The project introduces installations, performances, and community interventions grounded in circular economy principles such as reuse, regeneration, and low-waste systems. Circular pedagogies involve hands-on, collaborative learning rooted in place and traditional ecological knowledge, including workshops on composting, local dyeing, and repair practices. As a circular cultural hub, Etno Selo hosts artists, educators, students, and residents who co-create experiences linking environmental awareness and cultural continuity. The initiative supports COST Action CA23117 by offering a replicable model for circular education in cultural and urban contexts, highlighting art-based, participatory methods for resilient, sustainable communities.

Author
Viktorija Mangaroska

Singing as a practice of childhood: Towards an understanding of children’s political agency and voice in culturally diverse societies
Children’s singing has been widely studied in music education, with emphasis on vocal skill development, pedagogy, and children’s cultures through song repertoires. However, far less attention has been paid to children’s experiences of singing in relation to political agency and voice, particularly in increasingly diverse educational contexts. This gap is striking at a time when global and national policies—such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Finland’s Child Strategy—call for greater inclusion of children’s perspectives in decision-making affecting their lives. Singing is embedded in children’s everyday ecologies and functions as a practice of childhood rather than merely a learned form of adult culture. It is relational and place-bound, capable of amplifying or silencing children’s voices. Capponi-Savolainen (2025) demonstrates that through singing, children create spaces of trust and freedom within and beyond school, enabling participation, mutual care, and the expression of agency amid the complexities of rapidly diversifying societies.

Author
Analía Capponi-Savolainen; University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland.

Sensory Pedagogy and Alternative Forms of Assessment: Learning Mappings through Art
This presentation explores alternative approaches to assessment that challenge conventional written and standardised testing by proposing circular, participatory, and sensory forms of evaluation grounded in embodied, artistic, and communal practices. Learning is framed as a dynamic ecology of knowledge shaped by plural epistemologies and informed by decolonial perspectives that legitimise diverse ways of knowing. Art is understood not as an accessory but as a participatory methodology for knowledge circulation. The Sound Gardens project (Eleusis 2023 – European Capital of Culture) exemplifies this approach, engaging pupils from intercultural primary schools and a special education unit in recording urban sounds and translating them into interactive multisensory maps activated through light, colour, and movement. These maps functioned as repositories of ecological and historical memory. Assessment was co-designed by pupils, educators, and artists, with collaboratively defined criteria such as sensory quality and intercultural collaboration. Comparable projects in Novi Sad 2022 and Kaunas 2022 demonstrate the transferability of this dialogic, inclusive, and empowering assessment model across diverse urban contexts.
Author
Argyriou, Maria, University of the Aegean, Greece

Multidisciplinary Pedagogies for Inclusive Learning Environments in Urban Margins
This paper examines how inclusive pedagogies and diverse educational practices can generate new knowledge ecosystems for sustainability, particularly in non-Western metropolitan contexts. Drawing on research into inclusive education and critical teacher development in Türkiye and the Eastern Mediterranean, it presents empirical findings that challenge dominant Eurocentric frameworks in sustainability education. Using participatory action research and long-term collaboration with educators and marginalised communities, the study explores pedagogies rooted in local knowledge, cultural memory, and creative co-learning as alternative indicators of sustainability. By integrating perspectives from teacher education, educational leadership, and social justice-oriented pedagogy, the lecture contributes to WG1’s aim of rethinking circularity in education. Schools are examined as active sites of socio-ecological transformation, where learning spaces are co-designed as inclusive, dialogic, and creative environments that foster collective agency. Aligned with the CIRCUL’ARTs framework, the presentation highlights participatory governance, decolonial epistemologies, and capacity-building models that make sustainability meaningful and actionable across cultural, territorial, and institutional contexts.

Author
Muhammet BAŞ, Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Türkiye.