The NICE project; toleraNce, Inclusion and acceptanCe in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

The NICE project; toleraNce, Inclusion and acceptanCe in Europe

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: Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The project promoted ideas and concepts to enhance and consolidate tolerance activities in the school environment, but also to fight and counter-act intolerance through engaging students in classroom activities. The project aimed to highlight similarities and differences between people and countries, which was done by talking about religious and cultural perspectives of different opinions. We shared also good practices between teachers and school staff for educational improvements concerning prejudice and stereotypes. We created classroom activities as well as “whole school activities” to underline the importance of fighting prejudice and embracing similarities between people. In order to raise awareness of negative attitudes that we (sometimes) held to each other, we debated democracy, equal rights (such as LGBT+ ), cultural differences (and similarities). We talked further about identities, social inclusion that enhance the trust between people. The activities and tasks that students were to implement were the living proof of all discussions and debates we had had. The students created for instance films, a newspaper with relevant articles linked to the project´s objectives, had debates, discussions, answered surveys on tolerance and took part in lectures . They also interviewed older relatives within the objectives and presented the results on one of the mobilities. The lectures were of great importance since they dealt with key factors of the project namely stereotypes, prejudices and how to overcome them.

Results were conclusive that students became more aware of their own attitudes concerning tolerance, social inclusion, identity,equal rights, stereotypes, prejudices and cultural similarities and differences.. They also gained knowledge in how easily it is to identify stereotypes and prejudices through creative activities and tasks. The knowledge that we gained we used and disseminated to colleagues, other relevant school staff , teacher students from the university, colleagues at other schools nationally and internationally for the benefit of the project. We also became aware of how to be more creative in conveying the newly won skills to the students´peers and the world outside of schools. The project gave an opportunity for the students to create contacts on a more personal level preferably lasting for many years to come and for the teachers creating net works with teachers in other school systems and countries in Europe. We learned in the project how to formulate questions to prevent prejudices and fight stereotypes, how to have a balanced attitude towards how people choose to express themselves; to listen but also to question. By sharing good practices and other useful examples of both students and teachers we got many excellent insights in ideas and methods for our teaching. We also learned to debate and by that accepting each others´ differences. We became aware in depth of the mechanisms involved psychologically and sociologically when prejudices and stereotypes are involved in human activity. Above all the main realisation and learning experience was the importance of meeting eye to eye and be able to discuss and listen to each other even when the topics were complicated and at times difficult to grasp. The human interaction was absolutely the most vital point and discovering our similarities and differences in these matters of concern.

The project had an extension due to the pandemic which was beneficial since we could finalize the project properly instead of forcing it to end. We were happy how everything turned out, even if the pandemic forced us to move online and end the project digitally in stead of a final physical mobility. All in all, we hope that European values always will be tolerance, acceptance and inclusion among other important values.
The long – term benefits are clearly the opportunities given all our students when discovering various school systems, having been able to discuss and debate with their European counter parts, questioning themselves concerning the objectives, discovering the similarities and differences between the various partners and themselves and finally discovering a European dimension where we all are living in . After all we are all the same but slightly different.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 149462,4 Eur

Project Coordinator

St Eskils Gymnasium & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Poole Grammar School
• Jyväskylän Lyseon lukio
• Matyas Kiraly Gimnazium
• IISS”GORJUX-TRIDENTE-VIVANTE”