History

The Mediterranean Society of Comparative Education (MESCE) was launched in Catania (Italy) during a conference, “Comparative Education in the Mediterranean,” held on 4th-6th March 2004, organised by Giovanni Pampanini.

This organisation emerged against a background of interesting initiatives that were carried out with respect to education in the Mediterranean region. Professor Ronald Sultana, who now directs the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research at the University of Malta, had initiated a series of research seminars focusing on education in the Mediterranean, the first of which in 1999. These were known as the Selmun Seminars because of the venue involved, the 18th century Chateau at the Selmun Palace Hotel in Malta. Papers from some of these seminars were published in edited volumes produced by such publishing houses as Peter Lang, New York. Earlier, Ronald Sultana launched the Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies, a peer reviewed academic journal published twice a year. The journal is now in its twelfth volume.

Other activities included the hosting of a number of conferences on education in the Mediterranean such as ‘Il Mare che Unisce. Scuola, Europa e il Mediterraneo’ held at Sestri Levante in October 1998 and the one convened, a year later, by Giovanni Pampanini at the Gran Hotel Baia Verde in Catania and which led to the publication of the volume Un Mare di Opportunita` Cultura e Educazione nel Mediterraneo del 111 Millennio published by Armando Editore. These initiatives were in no way related to MESCE but were indicative of the type of activities being carried out in the region in the last decade. Initiatives of this type served to place the Mediterranean on the comparative and international education research agenda. In addition, a number of scholars were publishing papers on specific aspects of Mediterranean education in international refereed journals, mainly journals in international or comparative education. They were also published in other types of journals, including the Journal of Mediterranean Studies produced by the University of Malta’s Mediterranean Institute. This journal is interdisciplinary but it occasionally carries articles focusing on education. In addition to these activities, we witnessed a number of conferences, sponsored by the DVV-International, on Adult Education in the Mediterranean, conferences which bring together both practitioners and researches from both sides of the Mediterranean and which are intended towards the setting up of a Mediterranean Adult Education Association.

Since its launch, MESCE has served as the host regional organisation for the 2007 World Congress of Comparative Education, held in Sarajevo, and organised two Mediterranean conferences, in Alexandria (2006) and Malta (2008) respectively.

 

Aims

MESCE was registered in Catania and has the following aims:

  • developing the perception of a Mediterranean framework for Education;
  • fostering dialogue and mutual knowledge among scholars in Education and teachers and educators of all the Mediterranean countries
  • promoting the setting up of research programmes, co-operation and intellectual exchanges in Education among scholars from all the Mediterranean countries;
  • exploring possibilities for greater co-operation among scholars in Education and scholars in other disciplines, both humanistic and scientific within a Mediterranean context
  • carrying out studies in Comparative Education in the Mediterranean
  • reinforcing the politics of education aimed at guaranteeing all children and adult citizens the right to education in the widest sense possible;
  • avoiding, through education, the dangers of ignorance, intolerance, incomprehension, and racial hatred”
    guaranteeing to citizens of the Mediterranean the right to discuss their participation in and make an informed choice regarding different development models and ways of civil cohabitation in multicultural societies in and around the Mediterranean basin;
  • paving the way, through education, for cultural studies and intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean with respect to European and Arab cultures and the other cultures (e.g. Chinese, Indian and sub-Saharian) present in the Mediterranean area; this is done with a view to fostering greater understanding.

 

 

  
 

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