Teaching Diversity – Successful Antidiscrimination and Inclusion in Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Teaching Diversity – Successful Antidiscrimination and Inclusion in Schools

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Romas and/or other minorities; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Teaching Diversity – Successful Antidiscrimination and Inclusion in Schools

Background:
A small survey conducted at our school and repeated after one year revealed that a student may be discriminated for tabooed reasons: for being gay or lesbian, for living in poverty, or for belonging to a religious minority. An understanding of “otherness” has been addressed as an essential topic in classroom. Furthermore, the principal of inclusion has been considered (e.g. during conferences, meetings, workshops) more than didactic but as the key to creating a more respectful and tolerant society.

Objectives:
– The phenomenon of discrimination was approached. The following questions were posed and answered: Who is discriminated and why? What can discrimination lead to? How can one stand up against discrimination?
– Students formulated their own opinions after discussion in which various perspectives were addressed
– The values of the European Union (tolerance, freedom and plurality) were discussed and made clear with examples from school’s daily routine.
– Students learned how to work and communicate and how one becomes socially integrated.

The Participants:
Four schools took part in this project: The coordinating school, GCLS in Ober-Ramstadt (Germany); the 3rd Senior High School in Chania (Greece); the Istituto Russell/Netwon in Scandicci (Italy); the George Cosbuc in Cluj (Romania). Around 50 students and 15 teachers were selected to work directly on this project. Selected students were able to exhibit a special competence for, interest in, and motivation to approach social problems. Teachers were chosen because they can best attend to the central topics and offer special insight (thanks to their special skills or taught subjects) and also because they exhibited a competence especially relevant to the project. We estimate that the project has been affecting about 10,000 people.

Description of the activities:
The project took place over a 22 month period, beginning in September of 2017 and ending in June of 2019. The project was based on 4 central mobility exchanges. Each member school was specialized in its own mobility exchange focusing a specific topic. Each topic was intensively prepared and consolidated. To make that possible, at each school a series of activities was planned and used: inside the school (role-plays related to discrimination, interviews, and presentations) and obviously outside the school (field trips, meetings, workshops).

An Overview:
1. We called the first mobility exchange (Ober-Ramstadt, Germany) “Natural Sciences”, involving themes such as: Altruism, social behaviors, sexual diversity among animals, and biodiversity in nature.
2. We called the second mobility exchange (Chania, Greece) “History, Politics, and Economics” involving themes such as: Cultural diversity, heritage, and economic challenges/development.
3. We called the third mobility exchange (Florence, Italy) “Art and Culture” involving themes such as: Development of the arts, culture as an instrument of integration, agriculture as way of inclusion (e.g. of disabled).
4. We called the fourth mobility exchange (Cluj, Romania) “Language” involving themes such as: Multi-lingualism, protection of minority languages, inclusion of social diversity (disabled children) and intercultural life.

The project was based on the following methods and concepts:
-Two times (instead of originally planned three times) throughout the project, the theme of discrimination was reinforced via statistics. This afforded us more control over the objectives.
– The four mobility exchanges were prepared and followed up on (e.g. questionnaire, feedbacks, discussions). Such intensive preparation and reflection ensured the continued development of topics and the implementation of our objectives.
– Each mobility exchanges was assigned a separate didactic unit.
– We took time to reflect upon the mobility exchange. This allowed us to pinpoint weakness and make improvements.

We reached the following outcomes:
1. Students became more conscious of discrimination. They are now able to recognize the risks of a discriminatory society and recognize the value in tolerance, respect, unity.
2. The project provided the space for a productive exchange of experiences and ideas, from which teachers and students profited. Materials produced as a result of the project (PDF, Video, Word) were made easily accessible (on our wonderful website)
will profit. Materials produced as a result of the project (PDF, Video) will be made easily accessible.
3. Didactic units were developed, implemented in some classes and are about to become a part of the teaching curriculum.
4. The students developed essential skills (language, intercultural, communication) for university and careers.
5. An Office for Diversity Affairs was established at the school, as well as a “Europe Day”, an “International Women’s Day”, a “Day against Homophobia” and a “International HIV/AIDS Day”.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 86160 Eur

Project Coordinator

Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Schule Integrierte Gesamtschule mit gymnasialer Oberstufe & Country: DE

Project Partners

• 3rd Senior High School of Chania
• Colegiul National “George Cosbuc”
• ISISTL Russell-Newton