Questions for Europe? – Answers from Europe! – The macrocosm of thought of European teenagers as mirrored in their questions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Questions for Europe? – Answers from Europe! – The macrocosm of thought of European teenagers as mirrored in their questions

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Questions for Europe? – Answers from Europe! – The macrocosm of thought of European teenagers as mirrored in their questions

I. Participants: Secondary Schools in Germany, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia; age of students: 14 to 17

II. Context/Objectives: “A look at a country’s youth is always at the same time a look at the future of a country.” (Sinus Survey) – What is presently on young people’s minds? What moves them? What identities do they form? What are their values? – Questions like these were at the heart of the German Sinus-Survey, which was published in April 2016: 14 to 17 year-old teenagers were interviewed extensively and without being limited by any list of fixed topics. The results of this survey are highly fascinating and sometimes downright surprising.
It is not just such narrative interviews that can reveal many things about the workings of an individual’s mind. Also people’s questions provide important clues about their identities, give away their hopes, but also their fears and uncertainties. Collected in a systematic fashion, such questions can reflect a macrocosm of thoughts, of ways of life, and of individual as well as collective identities.
Especially at a time of vital challenges to a united Europe against the backdrop of severe global crises, focusing on the questions of young people from different European countries offers the possibility of figuring out what is on young Europeans’ minds and what they expect from Europe. If young people cannot find satisfactory answers to their questions in their local, regional or national contexts, they can use Europe as a kind of “think tank”, which they can tap for the knowledge and experiences available in other European countries and which can help to answer their questions. If Europe can provide answers to the central questions of its youth, it can give them guidance and promote their commitment to the idea of a united albeit diverse Europe.
This is why, in addition to collecting these questions, looking for relevant answers to them was a vital part of this project. Comparing the questions and the various answers from different countries revealed both a European common ground and national, regional and cultural differences, which could then be discussed, understood and relayed. This lively and fruitful transfer of knowledge and experience among Europeans promoted a mutual understanding, tolerance and willingness to cooperate with each other.
Students and teachers participating in the project, thus, also learned a lot about the matters European teenagers consider key issues and key problems. In doing so, they put their own thought patterns under scrutiny and – in an active, independent, reflected and self-reflexive way – applied (meta-) cognitive strategies that are crucial in our modern (digital) knowledge-based society.

III. Methods and phases:

Stage 1: Students collected questions in their home countries – without any limits or focus on certain fields or areas. The questions could be on anything that crosses their minds or that they wondered about.

Stage 2: Students tried to find experts to answer their questions in their countries. They transferred these questions/answers into English and collected them.

Stage 3: In transnational working meetings, students from all partner countries discussed and compared their “national” results and determined parallels and differences. Students learned to look to other countries to find answers to what they wanted to know. They cooperated in preparing the presentation/dissemination of their results.

Stage 4: The presentation/dissemination of the results was originally planned in different media representations and contexts. Unfortunately, the aftermath of the Corona pandemic meant that some of this had to remain fragmentary and unfinished.

IV. Outcome and Impact:

The presentation/dissemination of the outputs fell short of the original goals due to the Corona pandemic. The results (film clips, screencasts/learning videos, presentations, website, materials on e-twinning) are often only available in fragments, but other educational institutions/individuals can benefit from the project’s results and possibly carry out similar projects with their exchange partners or at their schools, or use the materials developed in the project in the classroom.

Project Website

https://sites.google.com/view/qeae/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 121095,74 Eur

Project Coordinator

Katharinen-Gymnasium Ingolstadt & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Kelmes Jono Graiciuno gimnazija
• Liceo classico linguistico scienze umane Mamiani
• I Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. T. Kosciuszki w Koninie
• Tallinna 21. Kool