Identify democray Erasmus Project

Project Title

Identify democray

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: Romas and/or other minorities; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

In the light of recent political developments in Europe, we have become aware of the necessity to address the issue of democracy among young people. These political developments range from the deprivation of speech and the right of assembly to the unreflected use of new media to the open discussion of one’s basic human rights. As 2019 is the eTwinning Year of Democratic Participation, we have decided to launch our project “Identify Democracy”.

It is our goal to enable students to find their own personal approach to democracy and to make them aware of the voice they have in democracy. During this process, students will contemplate their identity within their national context and eventually compare the notions of their own identities with differing ideas of other participants, which gives the project an international dimension as well. As a result, the students will understand the complexity of the concept “identity” better and will realize its importance in the transnational political discourse.

After the students have determined who they are, where they are placed in society and what influences them, we want them to take a closer look at the viewpoints they have on different topics. We want to identify what the students’ interests and ideals are, and what they are willing to stand up for. The following questions will be addressed: “What is your role in society?”, “How do democratic processes work?”, “Why do we need democracy – what are its advantages and disadvantages?” After the reflective process, students will engage in creative activities that identify democracy and stress its importance in their lives.

The target group for the student exchange will be a number of interested students who will be chosen with great care by the participating schools. These students will be aged between 14 and 18. Moreover, all the staff members of the schools are encouraged to disseminate the topic of democracy in their classes and to engage their students in different discussions and activities.
The following activities are planned during the international exchange weeks:
The first phase, “Identities”, includes actions such as mindmaps on identities, a quiz on stereotypes and “Mentimeters”.
In the second phase, “My Idea of Democracy”, role plays about decision-making processes and a comparison of surveys concerning the electoral behaviour of people in the surroundings of the students of the participating schools will take place. Furthermore, the students will take part in a “Democracy Workshop” at the Austrian Parliament (“DemokratieWERKstatt”), and they will take a walking tour of Vienna focusing on “Places of Democracy”. Moreover, the students will initiate a campaign to encourage people in their surroundings to make use of their right to political participation, in particular their right to vote in democratic elections.

In the final phase, all participates will jointly prepare a theatre performance with the thematic emphasis being on their own identities and values, civic courage, power, values and democracy. Different approaches from theatre pedagogy will be used, for instance the participatory and the biographic theatre approaches by Maike Plath. We want to focus on jointly created authentic texts, which will be the “building blocks” from which – step by step – a play is formed. This approach gives all participants the chance to contribute their share to the play. In this way, students themselves will take the initiative, which will have a longterm self-empowering effect on the students involved in designing the play. This will help those students involved finding their place in work, society and among the European community. Consequently, topics from the students’ own realities will be in the centre of interest and will be interwoven with the topics dealt with in the project.

Families, friends and classmates of the participants will be invited to the performance in order to disseminate their newfound understanding of democracy and to encourage new thoughts amongst the audience. Moreover, the performance will be recorded for further dissemination and in order to make it available to all participants as well as to make use of the elaborated contents even after the project has come to an end.

In the course of the project, the participating students will deal in detail with the topic of political participation and will thus spread their insights within their immediate personal environments and beyond. After the official end of the Project “Identify Democracy”, the students will have gained a deeper understanding of the importance democracy has for them personally. As a result the young people will be encouraged to actively take part in the socio-political discourse due to their experience gained during the project. By the end of the project the participants will have become confident European citizens who actively take part in the democratic processes of their countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 109772 Eur

Project Coordinator

Bundesgymnasium & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Institut Viladomat
• Gandhi Gimnazium, Kollegium és Alapfoku Muvészeti Iskola
• Heilig-Hartcollege