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With its emphasis on the European transnational, multi- and inter-cultural dimension and by focusing on the active civic participation and education, the general aims of this project are to contribute to contemporary discussions of how to deal with the social and political changes resulting from European integration, enlargement and globalisation and to provide a view of their impact upon four different member countries: Portugal, Spain, Denmark and England.
This project started with the analysis of the intercultural element in official normative European documents dealing with citizenship education and moved into a comparative/contrastive analysis on the same issue between national documents. Some interviews to authors (both academic scholars and policy-makers) are to be carried out. The main corpus of this project consists of an empirical study (quantitative and qualitative) with teachers (at all levels previous to higher education) involved in citizenship education.
This project is focusing on the perceptions, experiences and expectations that teachers have about the intercultural dimension of citizenship education, both as citizens and as educators. It is also looking at the relationships that teachers establish with NGOs and on the way they use the information they receive from the media. The project will analyse both inputs and outputs in teacher education i. e. their sources of knowledge, both content and experiential knowledge, and the possibilities they can create in order to become active participative educators within the scope of intercultural citizenship education.
AIMS
The general aims of this project are:
(a) to contribute to contemporary discussions of how to deal with
the social and political changes resulting from European integration,
enlargement and globalisation;
(b) to provide a view of their impact upon four different member
countries (Portugal, England, Denmark and Spain).
OBJECTIVES
Overall objectives:
(a) to find out about the teachers' and student teachers' experiences,
interests and opinions as citizens and as educators with regard
to their and their students' intercultural active civic participation
and education;
(b) to compare/contrast these findings with the objectives and activities
recommended by universal, European and national official documents
on citizenship and human rights education aimed to foster intercultural
education;
(c) to identify the main needs for teacher education programmes
in this area.
Specific objectives:
(a) to understand how European and national documents aimed to foster
citizenship education and human rights address the intercultural
dimension and to identify their recommendations for mainstream education
in this area.
(b) To explore the ideas behind the regulations and recommendations
provided by European and national (Portugal, England, Denmark and Spain) institutions with regard to the intercultural dimension
in citizenship education and their multicultural perceptions of
human rights by interviewing institutional actors (those involved
in the production of documents related to citizenship and human
rights education and those dealing with intercultural education
on a European and national level).
(c) To find out about the teachers and student/teachers ' active
civic participation in their social contexts and their main sources
of information as related to intercultural communication and interaction.
(d) To identify and examine how teachers and student teachers participating
in this study understand and implement the objectives of the documents
analysed previously.
METHODOLOGY
(a) Theoretical analysis - review
of relevant and updated literature on identity, and citizenship,
human rights and intercultural education.
(b) Normative analysis - close examination and comparative/contrastive
analysis of the intercultural dimension in official documents aimed
to regulate Citizenship Education at the European and national levels.
(c) Quantitative analysis - statistical analysis of a questionnaire
distributed amongst teachers of basic and secondary school level
that are involved with Citizenship Education at disciplinary or
interdisciplinary level.
(d) Qualitative analysis - based on ethnographic research through
individual interviews and, whenever possible, of focus-group interviews
with some policy-makers and of a greater sample of teachers and
student teachers.
PRODUCTS
Reports and publications. The final
product(s) will contain clear guidelines and recommendations within
citizenship and human rights education while focused upon active
civic participation.
POTENTIAL
IMPACT
This project is meant to impact upon
the participants in the project and upon the potential users of
its products, that is, policy-makers, academics, teacher educators
and mentors, prospective and experienced teachers who have been
or will be involved in citizenship education and, more specifically,
in intercultural education both for mainstream and minority students.
It is assumed that participants will reflect critically upon the
recommendations and their implications as stated in transnational
and national official documents, upon their own experiences and
practices and will refocus their mental frameworks by becoming more
aware of the complexities of intercultural education when considered
within the scope of citizenship education. Their perspectives will
be questioned and they are expected to undergo a process that will
impel them to clarify their concepts, to re-consider their procedures
and to reestablish their goals in relation to intercultural education.
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