Building Multiculturalism: entering into a dialogue without sacrificing our cultural identities Erasmus Project

Project Title

Building Multiculturalism: entering into a dialogue
without sacrificing our cultural identities

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Access for disadvantaged; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Living in Europe is something we all do, but most of the time we take for granted that everybody shares and accepts the same backgrounds, traditions and expectations. Our project aims cater for the coexistence and inclusion of all students in a new context, to open students to intercultural and multicultural learning, to respect for the differences between culture at home and abroad, to encourage students to look for new and creative ways of communication, to avoid early school leaving and disadvantage and to widen scopes towards a European mind and citizenship.
The four schools committed to this project have been witnessing dire circumstances that prevent students from achieving a positive academic performance, namely hard economic situations that have forced families to immigrate to other countries, skyrocketing unemployment that has made them have difficulties to make ends meet, or different kinds of impairments which place them in disadvantage in relation to other classmates.
Thus, the fist step will be to invite a large number of pupils in all schools to tell us about their experiences, fears, hopes and difficulties at school. Students and teachers will analyse al these situations, will discuss them in assemblies and committees and will learn new ways to solve conflicts. We will hear real testimonies about integration and inclusion at school and will create a protocol on good practices. We will also work on how to become an active and responsible citizen in their school and community. Eventually we will try to reflect on a potential European identity and citizenship. This way in the two years of the project we will try to cover all levels, from local to national and finally to a European dimension, which will lead us to a global identity and diversity.
Participants will be students between 14 and 18 years old from the four schools There will be one mobility to each country where students will carry out activities on multiculturalism, early drop-out, better school performance, immigration, integration, inclusion, disabilities and school harmony under the philosophy of learning by doing, that is to say, active performance, reflection and discussion will make students (and teachers) understand situations better and more quickly and find solutions on the spot. Thus, debates, round tables and teamwork will be key concepts in the development of the project. The job will be done as an interdisciplinary curricular activity using English as the language of communication and supervised by the teachers with a particular accent on web based activities and a constant focus on assessment of the desired aims thanks to checklists created ad hoc. In between mobilities we will show what has been done in the mobility and will apply and experiment with the new methods and ideas. At the same time we will prepare materials for the next mobility.

By the end of the project we hope to have the following results:
– a manual or protocol including goals, contents and process about how to cope with the problems described in the second paragraph, which will allow us to improve coexistence and social harmony in the schools and will prevent future failure and early drop out due to disabilities, integration or inclusion issues. This protocol will be included in the General Annual Planning of the four schools and will be used to welcome and integrate all new students. All participants (teachers and students) will help the Guidance Department to implement the measures described in the manual, which of course is open to adaptations in case new circumstances may arise. (all project throughout, finishing it in the mobility in Italy)
– presentations made by students about the situation of their schools at the beginning of the project (mobility in Spain)
– presentations about regional identities and how totalitarisms tried to undermine them (mobility in Poland)
– presentations about historical events in each country that had to do with social exclusion and radicalism (mobility in Poland)
– presentations about landmarks that have catered for inclusion and integration (mobility in Greece)
– videos (vlogs, movies, documentaries) including performances made by students about potential cases of school exclusion and ways to solve them (all project throughout)
– creation of a TV news programme about how our students see Europe and their personal position in Europe in the future.

These results will be uploaded in the E-Twinning platform as well as on the website of the project, so that they will be accessible and available for any school that would like to deal with these matters.
Hopefully by the end of the project we will also have raised our students’ awareness about identities that everybody may share, no matter their origin, background, language, impairments, race, gender or religion. This awareness may also be the starting point for future cooperation.

Project Website

https://webapplication220220309225417.azurewebsites.net

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 107930 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES SAN CRISTOBAL DE LOS ANGELES & Country: ES

Project Partners

• IIS MICHELE GIUA – CAGLIARI
• Zabrzanskie Centrum Ksztalcenia Ogolnego i Zawodowego
• 4th Lyceum of Katerini