Challenges of globalization for national identity and European integration Erasmus Project

Project Title

Challenges of globalization for national identity and European integration

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Inclusion – equity; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

“Challenges of Globalization for National Identities and European Unity” gave opportunity to get knowledge about different cultural values in four different European countries. During the project, students met migrants in each activity and learnt much about social exclusion. Multiculturalism and multilingualism are very much alive in today´s Europe. Participating this project gave the students and teachers better skills to face and solve problems in these fields. Acceptance towards diversity improved. The knowledge about political movements /parties and polarization of people in societies increased. Knowing one´s identity gave better possibility to learn about other national values/characters. With that, an individual can fight against racism and social exclusion in society. The participating schools were the upper secondary school of Hatanpaa from Tampere, Finland (coordinator), Ventspils 4. vidusskola from Ventspils, Latvia (partner), Gymnasium Carolinum from Neustrelitz, Germany (partner) and Stoevring Gymnasium from Stoevring, Denmark (partner).
Understanding through conversation was at the center of attention in each LTT activity meeting. Students identified their personal potential by reflecting on their own identities in order to develop the key competences (competences necessary for their individual development, social cohesion, active citizenship, language, information technology as well as the learning competencies). A single student had to enable to organize the learning process according to one´s aspiration also in a group. One had to be aware of the methods and possibilities. All objectives, written in the application, were achieved. Priority of work done lied in the fields: “Language awareness in a multilingual and multicultural school and the national identity”, “Refugees in the past and present-solutions for the future”, Understanding through communication” and “Political movements in Europe that challenge European unity”.
In Finland, equality and sense of community were in the main issues, because the school and society there were multilingual and -cultural. The students made a video as a product of this first meeting. They also commenced an e-vocabulary about terms used and learnt. In Germany, the work started continued on acceptance and tolerance, because Germany as a society has many examples in that field. We all learnt that sustainable results in the fight for the maintaining humanity and integration on a pan – Europe, could achieve, when acting as a community. The German school made the websites of the project. There was also a photo exhibition about refugees made by participating students there. In Latvia the focus was on values and media, because the Latvian school had suitable relationship to the organizations needed. By recognizing and understanding national values, identity and self-confidence increased and led to discover universal and established values of other nations. There was also many items to rehearsal critical thinking. The outcome “Think! Defy manipulation!” was a short movie made by the participants there. The participating Latvian teachers and students made also videos about each LTT activity meeting. Critical thinking led us all to Denmark and political movements/parties in different European countries. Populism and social exclusion were the targets there. Equality, sense of community, acceptance, tolerance and understanding, verified all there.
The project work consisted of the three parts: discussing and finding answers to preliminary questions in national groups (every participating student) using information technology to exchange information, project meetings (six students from each country working together in international groups using English) and the reworking (the participating students worked as multipliers in their national groups).
When ending the project, the students reflected on all the good impressions and picked up the best ideas for their future capital. Through communication in foreign languages while working together and the use a variety of modern leaning technology, the language, digital, social and civic competences improved.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99520 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hatanpään lukio & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Støvring Gymnasium
• Gymnasium Carolinum
• Ventspils 4.vidusskola