Criss Crossing Cultures Erasmus Project

Project Title

Criss Crossing Cultures

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; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The realization of the project has revolved around its fundamental theme of cultural heritage given 2018 was declared the year of the “European Cultural Heritage”, an initiative that highlighted the importance of promoting European wealth in its cultural aspects as the main tool to strengthen the participants’ awareness of being endowed, in diversity, with a “shared Heritage”. A shared heritage whose promotion begins as early as 1987, the year in which the Council of Europe launches the Cultural Routes Programme with the intent to demonstrate, through a journey through time and space, how the diversity and cultural richness of European countries contributes to an inestimable shared cultural heritage: human beings’ universal values, cultural democracy, diversity and identity, exchanges and mutual enrichment beyond borders and centuries.
The focus of the project was to stimulate curiosity in the minds of European natives, a greatest challenge to be faced by accepting the opportunities offered by the European governance, but above all by creating shared initiatives in synergy with different actors, such as the Europan Schools.
“Criss Crossing Cultures” represented cultural systems that intersect adnd interact, finding in the social, historical and cultural diversity of the various countries involved the main strength and convergence for the new generations. The project promoted, through the organization of ” Learning Teaching and Training Activities “, the transnational mobility of 94 participants (66 students aged between 14 and 16 plus 28 teachers) from Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, who worked in the framework of an important intercultural exchange through the study of the following European Cultural Routes: the Legado Andalusi (Spain); the Phoenicians’ Route (Greece); the Transromanic Route (Portugal); the Itineraries of the Olive Tree (Italy) taking into account that the “European Youth Study”, commissioned by the TUI Foundation in May 2017 on the basis of a survey conducted in seven EU countries, had offered information on how the younger generations perceive the European dimension:
76% of interviewers considered the EU a purely economic alliance, only 30% of them considered it an alliance of countries with common cultural values ​​and again only 18% of young Europeans attributed common cultural roots to the EU while 1 out of 5 thought that their Country should have left the EU.
Consequently, we worked towards the achievement of the following objectives:
– building a ‘European cultural identity’ in young people;
– promotion of the concept of Europeanness;
– learning of the social and economic importance of the cultural heritage of the European countries;
– development in learners of audio-oral language skills and highly digital skills to be used also after the achievement of the diploma;
– improving the engagement of pupils within the school community in order to counteract premature dropout and failure;
– internationalization in the teaching approach adopted by the teachers;
– refinement of management skills in the context of community programmes by the school staff involved.
In order to achieve the mentioned objectives, the project envisaged the implementation of innovative and participatory teaching methodologies. Brainstorming, debates, project works, group tasks, peer education were teaching practices used both in each single school and during transnational mobility as main strategies to ensure the achievement of the following long-term impacts:
– achievement of 90% in the number of participants who manifested a greater level of cultural awareness and sense of belonging to the European Community.
– 80% improvement in the language level of the participants;
– 10% reduction of failures and cases of dropout in each partner school referring to the classes of the participants;
– future proposals for collaboration in projects related to the Erasmus + Programme as candidates among the schools of the partnership;
The activities carried out included on-line meetings, aimed to the open the sharing of information and procedures; use of communication methods such as Skype, e-mail and Whatsapp groups. Use of digital tools for the creation of a site and a blog, videos, interviews, ppt, conferences, dissemination via Facebook and Youtube.

Project Website

http://erasmus-crisscrossingcultures.89cap.it/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 105897 Eur

Project Coordinator

LICEO STATALE VITO CAPIALBI & Country: IT

Project Partners

• 3o GYMNASIO EDESSA
• IES Las Encinas
• ESCOLA SECUNDÁRIA DE INÊS DE CASTRO