“Strategies for Inclusion – Making high quality history and citizenship education more inclusive and accessible” connects practice to policy across countries, sectors and disciplines to provide solutions to address the challenge of inclusion in history and heritage education. The project will be implemented in a collaboratively in a cross-border and practice-based approach. Capacity building, dissemination, impact and sustainability are planned throughout the project, as well as targeted through training activities and multiplier events. This project addresses three challenges: - There is not enough attention given to the learning of students with special needs for specific subjects (e.g. history and citizenship), most of the research on special needs and inclusive education is general. - The disciplinary and pedagogical apparatus in history and citizenship education do not usually equip teachers to teach diverse classes, including students with special needs. - There is no specific platform for history and citizenship educators to share experience in teaching students with special needs and access relevant resources. Profile of the participants: Over 12.000+ participants, including educators, policy makers, civil society actors and researchers will participate in various degrees, with a core of 20 history and heritage educators working together to realise these aims. Core activities of the project are: - The assessment of needs through surveys, focus groups and interviews. - The collection of practices in agreed format on how history and citizenship education is currently taught in practice to diverse classes, including students with special needs during school visits. - The collaborative development of inclusive educational resources that help students to think historically and acquire civic competences and testing of these resources in practices in diverse classes, including students with special needs. - Transnational project meetings to plan and monitor the project and share experiences with colleagues. - The organisation and implementation of multiplier events to disseminate the project results and build capacities. The project explores a variety of methods and strategies that are now used in history and citizenship education (such as language-sensitive learning, collaborative learning, visual-oriented learning, scaffolding, making connections to personal experiences, and adapting to different learning styles) through training, peer-learning and collaborative work. Jointly developed learning resources will be tested in practices in diverse classes including those with students that have special needs. The project will result in the following outputs: - A selection of existing recommendations on inclusive education in general relevant for the subjects of history and citizenship (on classroom environment, teacher training, ICT-based learning, etc.) - A needs assessment to identify what is needed to make high quality history and citizenship education (more) inclusive and accessible. - A collection of practices on how history and citizenship education is currently taught in practice to diverse classes, including students with special needs. - (Multilingual) exemplar educational resources that are designed to teach history and citizenship to diverse classes, including students with special needs students with certain types of special needs, including (1) Ready to use learning activities and (2) Teachers guidance on the implementation of strategies for inclusion. - A policy recommendation on inclusive education with a specific focus on history and citizenship education (based on the findings of the project). In terms of impact, the project will: - Change the way in which special needs are addressed in the teaching and learning of history by identifying good practice and recommending the way forward. - Impact policy making on a European and in some cases national levels with practice-based evidence and impact practice by supplying and training educators with jointly developed and tested ready-to-use educational resources. - Raise awareness among practitioners, researchers, civil society actors and policy makers alike on the need to address new challenges ahead by timely and concise dissemination. In terms of long term benefits: - The project will generate long term benefits for the European community of history and heritage educators and researchers, special needs educators and researchers and a wide cluster of civil society actors by a consortium committed to sustain the impact and deepen the scope in the post-project period. - Pupils across Europe, with special needs, will be able to enjoy access and quality in the development of key competences through the innovations foreseen in the project for the field of history and heritage education.
In light of the 4th objective of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET2020), which states that “Educational disadvantage should be addressed through high quality inclusive and early education”, the project ‘Strategies for Inclusion – making high quality history and citizenship education more inclusive and accessible to all learners’ connected practice to policy across countries, sectors, and disciplines to address the specific challenge of how to promote and achieve inclusion in history and heritage education. To address such challenge, and moving from the assumption that the disciplinary and pedagogical apparatus in history and citizenship education do not usually equip teachers to teach diverse classes, including students with special needs, the project (1) DOCUMENTED AND DISSEMINATED SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES and DEVELOPED TAILORED EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES and (2) concurred to the EMPOWERMENT OF HISTORY AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCATORS TO MEET THE DIVERSE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS. In addition, it (3) RAISED THE AWARENESS ON THE POTENTIAL OF HISTORY AND CITIZENSHIP TO PROMOTE EQUITY, COHESION AND DIVERSITY IN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS throughout Europe to increase the attention given to the learning of students with special needs for specific subjects and to underline the role that subject teachers should have in the development of policies on inclusive education. Such objectives were met thanks to the engagement and cooperation of a Consortium composed of six partner: - EUROCLIO, a non-profit CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATION that works from a core mission to support the development of responsible and innovative history, heritage, and citizenship education by promoting critical thinking, mutual respect, peace, stability and democracy. - AEMoV (Portugal), who became a partner later in the project, replacing AECC, a school cluster experienced in teaching to diverse classrooms, including special needs students. - CIVITAS (Armenia), leading civic and citizenship education organization in Armenia, with a long experience in civic education and professional development, civic education standards and curriculum design, textbook writing, civic education project designing and implementation. - HvA (Netherlands), research department at the University of Amsterdam, experienced in providing clear definitions of concepts such as quality history and citizenship and of inclusive education. - NTNU (Norway), Norwegian university aiming at the strengthening of the teaching profession and experienced in projects bringing teachers and researchers together with individuals with special needs or different cultural backgrounds. - ZGNL (Slovenia), leading Slovenian institute for the integrated treatment of deaf and hearing impaired children, persons with speech and language disorder, and people with autistic spectrum disorder. Together, partners pursued the following project results: - A collection of existing recommendations and resources on inclusive education in general, relevant for the subjects of history and citizenship (O1) - A needs assessment through surveys, focus groups and interviews, which resulted in the identification of what is needed to make high quality history and citizenship education (more) inclusive and accessible (O2). - A collection of practices in agreed format on how history and citizenship education is currently taught in practice to diverse classes, including students with special, which resulted in 35 blog posts available for teachers to implement in their classroom (O3). - (Multilingual) educational resources that help students to think historically and acquire civic competences and testing of these resources in practices in diverse classes, including students with special needs (O4). - Policy recommendations on inclusive education with a specific focus on history and citizenship education (O5). Additional activities of the project have been (1) the organisation of transnational project meetings to plan and monitor the project and share experiences with colleagues; (2) the training of Special Interest Group members, to enhance their ability to promote inclusive history and citizenship education; (3) the organisation and implementation of multiplier events to disseminate the project results and build capacities of educators outside their network. All the activities and outputs of the project had a strong long-term impact on the organisations and individuals involved, concurring to the formation of a strong network of capable actors, who have expressed the desire to further deepen their cooperation and their cooperation and their efforts in the field of inclusive history and citizenship education.