Different and still the same – European! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Different and still the same – European!

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: Creativity and culture; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

The Austrian BG/BRG Leibnitz and the Amalie Skram videregående skole in Bergen had already worked together successfully in two Comenius and Erasmus+ projects. Our experience of cooperation with Bergen/Norway encouraged us to start a new project on the topic “Different and still the same – European”.
Students from Austria and Norway worked together on a project which dealt with the students views and prejudices concerning their partner country and their own national identity. This project made the students think about the clichés and stereotypes they have about the other country in order to break them down. Furthermore, this project led to a deeper understanding of the heritage of their own culture and at the same time opened their minds to a European or even global context of living and working together across national and cultural borders without prejudices. Dealing with their own culture and traditions and presenting them to their partner school on the one hand made them proud of their own nationality and on the other hand aroused their interest in the culture and traditions of their partner country. Doing so also led to improved mutual understanding, appreciation of diversity and a reduction of xenophobia.
The project participants were 43 16/17-year-old students from Norway and Austria who attended the same classes and two to three teachers per country.
The project consisted of online working phases and face to face project meetings in the form of student exchanges. During the online working phases the students did activities to introduce themselves to the students from the partner country, created logos for their common project, produced and exchanged videos about their views and prejudices concerning the other country and interacted via eTwinning, Padlet and social media. Furthermore, they did extensive research about the group topics which were geographical location and climate, historical development and historical links between Norway and Austria, different political systems, religion, educational systems, What does being European mean for Austrians and Norwegians?, nationalistic and xenophobic movements in Austria and Norway, political and economic relations between Austria and Norway, language – mini dictionaries of every day phrases in German, English and Norwegian, festivities and traditions focusing on school leaving traditions in both countries such as Maturaball culture in Austria as well as summer show and diploma ceremony in Norway. The results of the students’ work were documented through their videos, their vlogs about their trip to their partner country, their presentations at the Erasmus+ evenings in both countries and the creative output for the exhibitions at both schools.
In this project the students learned to work and collaborate independently on a common international project, choosing appropriate methods to reach their goals by themselves. Furthermore, they got to know various ways of working and learned to respect and accept them and thus became fit to work in multicultural teams. The participating students became more open-minded concerning working methods as well as other cultural and social settings. By using English as the working language of the project, the students greatly improved their language skills in English. Working on the project together and producing common final results also required good IT skills, so the students got a lot of practise in using their digital skills. Good foreign language skills and IT skills are vital to compete in a European and global job market and thus by improving these skills the students increased their future employability.
The Austrian students also visited the European capital Brussels and its institutions such as the European Parliament, the House of European History, the European Commission and the Steiermark Haus. After having dealt with the EU and its institutions thoroughly throughout their senior years and also within the Erasmus+ project “Different and still the same – European” this visit contributed to the students’ awareness of being European citizens and their understanding of our common European values and heritage.
Both schools boosted their European and international dimension, which might encourage the participants and even other graduates from our schools to consider studying and working abroad and thus open up to a globalised world.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 49455 Eur

Project Coordinator

BG/BRG Leibnitz & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Amalie Skram videregående skole