University-Community Partnerships as “Hybrid Contexts of Activity”: Learnings from Two Projects with Roma Children in Spain

This chapter describes two projects in Spain, one in Barcelona and one in Seville, that are considered “hybrid contexts of activity.” The Shere Rom Project links teachers, undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona with teachers, children, and families from local Roma communities and immigrants from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. La Clase Mágica-Sevilla also brings together partners from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, with mainly Roma young people from local marginalized communities. Both are inter-institutional projects in which the aims and practices of different organizations, such as universities, public schools, and neighborhood agencies converge in a new context of activity with their own aims and practices. They also have intercultural and intergenerational dimensions, bringing together participants from different groups with different life experiences. Focusing on the students’ learning and identity change processes, the authors in this chapter describe the ways in which all participants in these two projects learn and change as they develop new practices. This is done by constructing the idea of “hybrid contexts of activity,” which points to the transformative potential of the hybridity inherent in our projects as a seed for social transformation and dialogue.