Del Aram Bidabad. From Occitan Calandreta to cosmopolitan Volare: When cooperative and immersive pedagogies support the political goal of welcoming migrant singularities

Del Aram Bidabad studies classes and schools that identify with institutional pedagogy, focusing on their cooperative organization, the transmission of their theoretical and practical tools, and their connections with transcultural and interlinguistic pedagogies. In particular, she works with the Calandretas—immersive, bilingual, cooperative Occitan schools—as well as with their higher education training center, Aprene. In this work, she examines how major pedagogical principles, methods for addressing subjective, group, linguistic, and cultural dimensions, and the didactic and pedagogical techniques developed over the past fifty years can respond to the educational, political, and deeply humanist challenges faced by those involved in the Volare project. Del Aram Bidabad presents a “crossroads” of practices and theories that help answer a central question for the French team: How can we pedagogically welcome singularities while creating a shared space—a common fabric where a self-managed human group can support each individual in their existence, their development, and their inherent right to live with dignity, along with their languages, cultures, histories, and desires?