PREVENTION OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION THROUGH INNOVATIVE EDUCATIONAL ACTIONS Christina Ene, Ifigeneia Vamvakidou, Argyris Kyridis University of Western Macedonia (GREECE) christinaene@hotmail.com, ibambak@uowm.gr, akiridis@uowm.gr Abstract The present economic crisis and the continuous immigration influx led to the rise of the unemployment rate, the increase in poverty level and the drop in the standard of living of Greek people. The school, as a space of education and social integration, tries to support pupils facing social exclusion. This study shows how secondary schools in Edessa, the Pella Region, in Northern Greece, strive to provide students with equal opportunities regardless their national origin and social class, with the use of innovative educational actions. In order to integrate in school communities and local society immigrants' children as well as pupils belonging to low social levels, a wide variety of innovative actions were set up by the teachers of the region. Foreign languages were taught with the help of Comenius Language Assistants and practiced through pupils' exchange programs, video sessions and visits of native speakers' institutions in the area. Intradisciplinarity was promoted in all the educational steps. New technologies like e-books, educational platforms and videoconferences were used in order to encourage team work, project based learning and development of social sensitivity. Keywords: Social exclusion, innovative actions. 1 INTRODUCTION Today, one of the main aims of the Greek Ministry of Education Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs is to produce energetic policies in order to face and to reduce educational inequalities (see Zones of Educational Priorities). Educational inequality is a form of social inequality and is expressed by various ways within the educational system. For instance, statistical data show that there are various social and educational inequalities among the Greek Prefectures and Districts, in the form of vast differences of the school dropout, the school attainment of the students in terms of school grades, the possibilities of someone has to admit to a university depending on social and educational factors etc [1] In the recent past educational policies in Greece have been focused on the overall improvement of the Greek educational system and the educational functions. Beyond any doubts, there were some remarkable efforts (even outcomes in some cases) towards the democratization of educational system, teachers’ participation in school management, the adoption of “formal equality” regarding the access to higher education, the adoption of the nine years free of charge and public compulsory education and so on. In the context of the two year crisis, household finances have been deteriorating at the fastest pace in Greece, with people eroding their savings and taking on more debt to finance strong rises in living costs and additional taxes payment as income from employment continued to fall during the last year. There is no doubt that Greece faces the biggest squeeze on living standards since the 1960s and the consequences on social level are more than evident. Unemployment, inequality and social exclusion are the main characteristics of a nation who strive for maintaining their cohesion as well as the chance for a better future for the generations to come. As shown in Fig.1, the Pella County, situated in Northern Greece, is an area with high unemployment rate and a considerable percentage of foreign pupils in Lower Secondary School. The rest of the data refer to Greece in total. While people lose their jobs every day, many families face severe financial problems since they cannot cope with the cost of living. Social exclusion is a phenomenon encountered in all aspects of every day life, whereas integration of disadvantaged pupils into strong and integral school communities seems to be the only hope for combating the upcoming social crisis. Proceedings of ICERI2011 Conference. 14th-16th November 2011, Madrid, Spain. ISBN: 978-84-615-3324-4 000666