Discovering Capitals of Culture – Becoming a Capital of Culture Erasmus Project

Project Title

Discovering Capitals of Culture – Becoming a Capital of Culture

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

While the cultural dimension is among other elements at the core of the European Union, according to our observation many young people tend to show little interest in commitment to cultural activities. Thus, we would like to share within this project more deeply with our students ideas and visions of culture and its relevance to us. In this manner, we hope to qualify young people to come to know different European cultures and, in this way, to raise awareness that Europe as a whole is interconnected by the diversity of its culture(s) of which they themselves form a significant part.
To achieve this goal, we intend to make use of this year’s opportunity that Rijeka, home to our Croatian partner school, is endowed with the title and the program of “European capital of culture”. In consequence, our project intends to propose to young generations the concept and idea of a “capital of culture” by linking it to their own cultural experiences. Therefore, the three schools aim to work with 60 of our students on the problem how to present one’s own city and region as “capital of culture”. From that starting point, we will reflect on questions of “culture” in general, of the students’ own cultural identity; we will try to sort out which cultural patterns can be discovered in their countries and how these patterns relate to each other and could produce a mutual enrichment. Finally, we would like to ask them to work out what a common European culture might look like and how this common European culture might be of significance for the growth and development of Europe’s prosperity and its society at large. By participating within this project, students will be empowered to form an active part of developing a common European culture and identity beyond the borders of their own local, regional or national culture.
The project will consist of three learning activities, one at each of the home towns of each partner school, during each of which the students of the hosting school will present to their guests their reflections on and discoveries within the culture of their surroundings by organizing visits to cultural events or by staging themselves their ideas concerning culture and identity in traditional (e.g. talks, papers, various written or drawn products) or digital (e.g. electronic guides) ways. Subsequently, the guests themselves will introduce their own ideas about what they heard and saw, thus enabling the hosts to reflect more deeply about their own cultural identity and the cultural program on display within their home town. As to the guests, all three encounters will be prepared by collecting expectations while the hosts will be making provisions for their presentations. After the learning activities when all are back home each school will strive to deepen their own cultural experiences while working on the term and the significance of our common European culture.
As genuine results we expect to be able to release at least part of the presentations by which the participants introduce each other to displays, events, exhibitions, historical or religious data and other discoveries within their own cultural context as they will be of wider interest to the public. We do not intend to tie the students to prearranged tasks or manners of composing these presentations as we want to reinforce their self-reliance and their perception of self-efficacy. Accordingly, the students themselves will determine how to proceed and what to produce within the framework given by this project.
Another genuine result of our project will be the students’ efforts to answer the question of what is characteristic about “European culture(s)”. Here we might expect an exhibition, blog, webpage or some sort of performance on stage.
We expect that by discussing our cultural identity and the problem of “European culture(s)” we will have a strong impact on the subjects concerned (e.g. politics, history, geography, religious education, arts, music, languages) and its curricula and hence on interdisplinary learning. Furthermore, students will profit by gaining a higher esteem of cultural events and the necessity of intercultural dialogue. Finally, the presentations composed by the students will be of lasting use to everybody who intends to discover the culture on display in the three schools’ home towns and their surroundings.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 62032 Eur

Project Coordinator

Liebfrauenschule Cloppenburg. Gymnasium in freier Trägerschaft & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Ciszterci Szent István Gimnázium
• Salezijanska klasicna gimnazija, s pravom javnosti