Targeting extremism and conspiracy theories Erasmus Project

Project Title

Targeting extremism and conspiracy theories

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Conspiracy theories and misinformation have a much stronger impact on public discourse than they did just a few years ago and are now present through a wide range of information channels to a large part of German as well as European populations (Butter 2018). Current empirical findings show an increasing number of people believing in at least one conspiracy theory – in Germany one in four adults- as well as a growing number of older adults (Butter 2018, Decker, Kiess and Brähler 2013, van Prooijen and Douglas 2017). These theories often challenge the foundation of the democratic order, fundamental human rights and European cooperation.
Especially regarding the growing number of older adults believing in conspiracy theories, adult education institutions are coming to the fore. In Germany, there are so far mainly isolated, often unique educational offers of individual adult education centers (VHS Rostock, Chemnitz or Friedrichshafen, for example, offer courses). However, so far no overall handling of this phenomenon is known. In the context of the growing presence of conspiracy theories in pan-European space, it is therefore important to find out to what extent these phenomena also in adult education and to develop training opportunities that understand the fight against conspiracy theories and misinformation as a cross-sectional task of adult education in all areas, but especially in political and cultural education, in dealing with these theories. Therefore, in this project, on the one hand the needs of adult education institutions in dealing with conspiracy theories shall be examined and instruments for continuous monitoring should be provided, and on the other hand, a concept will be developed enabling the educators to deal with the theories that are relevant in their context. Particular emphasis is placed on European co-operation in the development in order to ensure an application of outputs in all EU countries.
The immediate target group of the project are educators of adult education. Since conspiracy theories are becoming more and more relevant for a growing part of the European society and, as already mentioned above, have become more prevalent among older people in particular, a concept is to be developed that is suitable for all teachers in adult education institutions. Even if educators in the political or cultural field come into contact with them much more frequently than, for example, teachers in the informatics, these programs should not be tailored only to the former. It is important to establishing a resistance to conspiracy theories as a cross-cutting task of adult education institutions. Therefore, the educators should be trained both in the detection of conspiracy theories, and thus the critical questioning of their own fields of vision, as well as in the discursive dealing with them. The indirect target group are students in adult education courses. Here too the focus should only be placed on genuinely socio-scientific areas of adult education, but include learners from all fields. In order to be able to work out a concept as accurately as possible, however, it is first necessary to raise the experience and needs of adult education institutions and to create a tool for continuous examination by the institutions themselves. The immediate target group here is educators in a leading function who will be enabled to accurately identify the needs of their educators and then react to the them using the educational concepts developed in this project.

Project Website

https://www.idd.uni-hannover.de/en/research/projekte/teach/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 261540,17 Eur

Project Coordinator

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITAET HANNOVER & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Demokratiezentrum Wien GmbH
• Volkshochschule Hannover
• NGO Ethnotolerance
• FOLKUNIVERSITETET STIFTELSEN VID LUNDS UNIVERSITET