Music and Politics Erasmus Project

Project Title

Music and Politics

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Context/Background:
Political education is the subject of appropriate disciplines at school. Arts and music are not among these. Nevertheless, people on the far edges of the political spectrum – as much as unscrupulous people on the music market – apply increasingly inherent mechanisms of music to manipulate social values of the youth. They rely hereby on the subliminal transmission of contents. This project aims therefore at underlining the potential of arts and music for political education not only at school, but also for youth organisations. The purpose is to develop a pro-active programme that integrates systematically and in an interdisciplinary way teaching of music, languages, dance and theatre to learn more about democratic culture. The European Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture as adopted in 2016 by the Council of Europe will set the guidelines for the project (https://www.coe.int/en/web/campaign-free-to-speak-safe-to-learn/reference-framework-of-competences-for-democratic-culture ).
Aims:
The participants of the workshops are meant to create an event integrating all elements of artistic expressions (music, theatre, dance, language) based on the manipulative patterns they will discover during the workshops. Through this analytical process the young people come to understand the principles of propaganda in arts and music and learn how to explain their own creation under these terms to the public.
A second aim is the development of a coaching project for teachers, educators and music teachers based on the experiences of the workshops. A documentary about the process and the subject in large is to be produced as audio-visual didactic material.
Number of participants/ Profile:
The project aims at young people from 14 years upwards and at school teachers, educators in the youth sector and music teachers. Each country participates with 15 young people.10 resource persons will be present at each workshop academy to guide the youth. The participation of impaired young people is possible.
Description of the activities:
Two 5-day academies will be organized. Resource persons from music, dance, theatre and communication context will work out with the young participants how to apprehend the five basic emotions (joy, rage, fear, disgust, sorrow). Experiential education will lead the participants to transforming their thoughts creatively into an artistic presentation.
At the second academy the young people will elaborate in more detail what they have already worked out at the first academy. The resource persons will help them to finalize the public presentation. The latter will be staged the day after the end of the academy as an official event of the “Aktionstage politische Bildung” (an initiative of the Council of Europe, developed in 2004 and since then organized in German speaking countries of the EU), together with a public debate on the subject of music and politics.
A training based on the experiences of the academies will be conceived and tested with the help of an e-twinning network during the multiplier event at the end of the project. At the same event a conference will be held to introduce multipliers from the school and youth sector as well as representatives from the ministries of education from the Great Region, the CDPPE (Steering Committee for Educational Policy and Practice of the Council of Europe; (https://www.coe.int/en/web/education/cdppe )) and the centres for political education of the German federal states to the results of the project and to discuss possible future perspectives. At this occasion parts of the audio-visual material can be shown.
Methods used:
Experiential education will be used during the five-day academies to develop creative outputs with the young people and also to gain the necessary insights to produce the didactic trans-disciplinary handout. The latter should be applicable as much in a school as in an after-school context.
The production of an audio-visual means as tool box for pedagogical aims offers a creative and innovative way to deal with the subject.
Expected Results:
Production of didactic materials for sustainable use of the results in political education in arts and music.
E-Twinning-network; coaching project for educators in the youth sector, music schools and schools; audio-visual material for didactic purpose.
Sustainability:
The didactic materials will continue to be used in political education training for arts and music after the project. They will also be available online on the webpages of the partners to be freely downloaded. The audio-visual material will be available with the worksheets.
Also the e-twinning network will continue to be active after the project and keeping the training updated by regional inputs.
The 4 week event „Aktionstage politische Bildung“ will contain a regular feature entitled „Music and Politics“, where also in future new presentations of young people can be integrated

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 363714 Eur

Project Coordinator

AUTONOME HOCHSCHULE OSTBELGIEN & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Deutsche Kinder- und Jugendstiftung
• ZENTRUM FIR POLITESCH BILDUNG