On October 9th and 10th 2008, the international conference „Lost in Space. The Evaluation
of Educational Policies and Measures for Young Migrants" will take place in Vienna.
The conference deals with educational measures and policies for young migrants as well as with the
question in how far a new, more targeted evaluation of such measures and policies contributes to an
improvement in the area of education and consequently on the labour market for this target group.
The background of this conference is a call of the European Commission - Directorate General for
Education and Culture, to improve the evaluation of educational policies focusing on the needs of at-
risk groups. Although there have been measures and policies for some decades in the area of
education and labour market for so-called at-risk groups, their social and economic position has not
significantly changed. These groups are often found among the early school leavers, the unqualified,
the jobless and consequently the ones running the highest risk of poverty – throughout Europe.
Is this due to the measures and policies? Were they bad or wrong or did they set unachievable goals?
Is it due to the so-called target group, the migrants? Actually, who are the migrants? Can all the
people affected be subsumed under one group? What does “second generation” mean? How long is a
migrant a migrant? Are made-to-measure actions possible on grounds of such subsumptions and can
you derive policies from them?
All these questions will be discussed on October 9th and 10th 2008 with an illustrious group of
migration researchers, educationalists, social workers and politicians. The location is the Viennese
children´s museum “ZOOM” which is part of Museumsquartier. The SOKRATES project partnership
AQua will present selected answers to these questions. The referees and participants are coming from
Germany, Austria, Sweden, Slovakia, Turkey, Hungary and Cyprus.
For more detailed information please contact susi.bali@zeitraum.org The conference will be held by
the project coordination Zeit!Raum on behalf of the European Commission - Directorate General for
Education and Culture, Directorate A - Lifelong Learning: Education and Training Policies.
List of invited speakers:
Susi Bali, Zeit!Raum – NGO for socio-cultural work, Vienna, Austria (confirmed)
Pietre Bevelander, Malmö University, Sweden (confirmed)
Gerda Challupner, Public Employment Service Austria (requested)
Dilek Çýnar, Bogazici University, Istanbul,Turkey (confirmed)
Costa Constanti, University of Nicosia/Intercollege, Nicosia, Cyprus (confirmed)
Elif Demircan, EU center of the Municipality of Sisli, Istanbul, Turkey (confirmed)
Renata Drienska - Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family, Slovakia (requested)
Jens Friebe, German Institute for Adult Education, Bonn, Germany (confirmed)
Lennart Frimodig, Integra, Uppsala, Sweden (confirmed)
August Gächter, Center for Social Innovation, Austria (confirmed)
Günter Haider, bifie, Austria (requested)
Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria (confirmed)
Thomas Huddleston, Migration Policy Group (requested)
Emre Iţýk, Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, Turkey (confirmed)
David Kostlán, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia (confirmed)
András Kováts, Menedék Association for Migrants, Budapest, Hungary (confirmed)
Mikael Luciak, University of Vienna, Austria (confirmed)
Laco Oravec - Nadacia Milana Simecku, Slovakia (requested)
Robin Schneider, Berlin Senate for Integration and Migration (confirmed)
Jean-Yves Stefani, European Commission - Directorate General for Education and Culture
Directorate A - Lifelong Learning: Education and Training Policies (confirmed)
Wolfgang Beywl, Univation, Köln (requested)
