Smart for Democracy and Diversity – Digital Education Concepts for Diversity and Democratic Participation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Smart for Democracy and Diversity – Digital Education Concepts for Diversity and Democratic Participation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Romas and/or other minorities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Democratic societies are based on the controversial and constructive discussion of issues. Civic education must address topics under discussion, work out fundamental differences of opinion and thus promote contradictions and critical thinking. Both learners and adult educators must become aware of their perception of social discourses and its impact on personal attitudes and actions. A conscious approach to one’s own attitudes promotes emphatic and critical thinking, creates an understanding for marginalized positions, and strengthens the capability to reflect one’s attitudes. By encouraging learners to develop their own assessment of issues, their self-determination is strengthened. Sound political positions and knowledge of debates and problems promote self-confident positioning in social issues. Through the low-threshold access of the SDD project, this is also achievable for people at lower educational levels.

In summary, the project intends to promote shared values, equality, social inclusion, diversity and non-discrimination through a digital learning approach. It aims at reducing disparities in accessing and engaging with educational offers that tackle discrimination, segregation and racism and support the integration of people with migrant background. The integrated project approach further aims to establish sustainable links between organizations active in education, the welfare sector and policy-making including the local and regional level.

External participants will be involved in all work phases: across countries 56-70 persons in narrative interviews on experiences with racist discrimination, 36-48 workshop participants concerned ny discrimination for the design of the scenes of the game, 14 participants in a Blended Learning Mobility and at least 152 stakeholders from associations and policy-making in national and European multiplier events.

In order to achieve the project objectives, four Intellectual Outputs will be carried out. They form different components for an integrated training offer but can be also used independently from each other. A code of practice “Experiencing Hate Speech: Responses, Coping Strategies, and Interventions” is based on investigations in personal experiences of being a target of discrimination or hate speech. Experience reports, testimonials, frequently used allegations, argumentation patterns and forms of self-protection will be collected and edited as online publication. An interactive learning platform will have a learning game at its core that will be accompanied by a library and materials for adult educators and stakeholders at political level. The game can be used as a stand-alone outcome. But as its impacts can be increased when embedded in a workshop, a curriculum and trainer manual with instructions on how to make use of the game will be developed. Adult educators who are not yet experienced in applying digital media will be provided with adequate aids. The aforementioned IOs are of particular interest for policy-makers, lobby groups and associations in educational and socio-political fields. A brochure with recommendations on how to promote diversity and empathy for victims of racism and hate speech and to facilitate the usage of the game and the learning platform is considered important in order to sustain the outcomes.

All Intellectual Outputs will approach their topics from a person-centred perspective. The pro-active involvement of persons who have experienced racism and hate is part of the quality management. Dissemination activities will target policy-makers and associations at all relevant levels but pay special awareness to grass-root initiatives fostering the social inclusion of persons who are targeted by racist behaviour.

As a result of the educational offers of the SDD project, the learners will have developed empathy, understood the dynamics of discriminatory situations and reflected their own views. They will be able to adapt their own actions and know how to react and intervene in discriminatory situations. The game explicitly intends to reach learners who usually would not attend formal or non-formal civic education offers. Further impacts can be envisaged for adult education institutions who will be provided with a high-quality training package for civic education as well as for stakeholders at political level. Impact on the broad public will include a strengthened awareness for the topic, supporting people to successfully cope with hate speech and protecting victims of discrimination.

Benefits in the long run will result from a contribution of the SDD game to promoting democracy and diversity Persons who know and respect the rules for debates of critical topics can confidently advocate change. Knowledge about inequality, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination as well as familiarity with strategies against these phenomena opens up the opportunity to work for more equality, democracy, participation and social inclusion

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 385040 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISIS Institut für Soziale Infrastruktur gemeinnützige GmbH & Country: DE

Project Partners

• AGE PLATFORM EUROPE
• LUNARIA ASSOCIAZIONE DI PROMOZIONE SOCIALE
• AFEDEMY, ACADEMY ON AGE-FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENTS IN EUROPE BV
• Bildungsstätte Anne Frank
• SHINE 2EUROPE, LDA
• UNIVERZITA KARLOVA