During our digital conference, we explored and discussed the complex challenges arising from the claim of an “education for all” during and after the pandemic, with around 200 participants during the four panel discussions. The event brought together researchers, educational practitioners, activists, and civil society initiatives from Turkey and the EU focusing on multiple forms of discrimination in migration societies and their educational institutions as well as approaches and strategies that can tackle the current exclusionary dynamic in education systems. During the conference we discussed questions such as:

• How does the current strengthening of symbolic and material borders, e.g. due to the pandemic, affect children’s right to education and non-discrimination?


• How do different categories of marginalization and layers of oppression intersect when it comes to the situation of “refugee children” within different education systems and settings in Turkey and the EU?


• Which inclusive approaches, projects and strategies are able to tackle exclusionary dynamics in education while being sensitive to multiple forms of discrimination and belonging?


• How can notions of solidarity go beyond solutions formulated by nation-states and be fostered across EU-Turkey borders when addressing global educational inequalities and injustices?

We would like to thank our panelists and audience very much for their lively participation in the discussion as well as our partners — the Migration Research Center at Koç University and the Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research in Athens — for their support. We hope that this conference will contribute to the exchange of ideas and strategies across EU-Turkey borders toward jointly fostering transnational solidarity and educational justice.

Joanna & Ellen, and the IPC-Sabancı University-Stiftung Mercator Initiative