The project "Everday life and cultures in Europe" aims at forstering mutual understanding and intends to enable students to adapt faster to diverse cultures and ways of life and to be more open-minded towards diversity in general, as well as, fostering the will in them to readjust their attitudes towards other cultures if necessary. In order to achieve this, students will be asked to some close and targeted research and examination of everyday life and culture in the participating countries Portugal, Poland, Turkey, Italy and Germany. As a preparation students in each country could deal with stereotypes of everyday life and culture in each participating country. Then, students will be asked what aspects of everyday life and culture of the other countries they are interested in to closely examine. According to this, they will design observation sheets and questionnaires with the help of ICT tools (like e.g. surveymonkey) which they will use for their investigation. Afterwards, students will have the chance to question, observe and experience the everyday life and culture both online (e.g. eTwinning), as well as during the actual short term exchanges of groups of pupils. During the visits the participating students will take part in team work activities and excursions in which students have the chance to casually get in contact with each other. These activities will be analysed according to the culture of the hosting countries. Students will ask other students and selected people about the topics they have chosen themselves (e.g. school, work, family life, freetime, youth, love, relationships, aims in life, prejudice, fears, social media, taste in music, costs of living,..) Furthermore, students could externally observe aspects of everyday life in the hosting countries (behaviour at the workplace, road traffic, in church/at the mosque, while shopping, in the playground, at school, at the restaurant....). During the visits students will preferably stay in host families to enable an even closer insight into everyday life. Apart from the observation sheets, students will be asked to document their findings with the help of photos, videos and other suitable ICT tools. Finally, students will be asked to compare their original stereotypical views of everyday life and cultures in the participating countries with the results of their close examinations. The outcome of the oberservations and possible products will be presented online on the project's website and blog, as well as, to all participants and each schools' public. In a final meeting all results could be summed up and reflected. On behalf of the teachers, they will have the opportunity as well, to experience cultural diversity in general and more specific in the classroom. They will gain insights into dealing with diversity by visiting classes and exchanging ideas, concepts of cooperative and autonomous learning and curricula of how to deal with diversity in the classroom, especially immigrants and people with special needs.
The idea of the project was to provide students and teachers from Germany, Italy, Poland, Turkey and Portugal with an exemplarily and systematically investigation of the diversity of everyday life and cultures in Europe. The aim of the project was first to enlarge students' and teachers' knowledge about these aspects in order to, as a second step, enable students to understand the background to different ways of life and views. In eight LTTAs and the project work in between the meetings the students gained knowledge in the fields of: - life in the past and present - school life and inclusion - food - religion - the world of work - and an environmental issues, like recycling. During the mobilities students and teachers engaged in multinational team work activities and excursions dealing with these topics. The investigations that took place during these activities were later evaluated and documented with the help of posters, photos, videos and a common project blog. Staying in host families provided the students with an even closer insight into everyday life and culture of the hosting country and enhanced their intercultural communication skills. All participants practiced the usage of ICT tools during the project work and used English as a means of communication which helped to increase their knowledge concerning these aspects. Overall, by working on this project all participants have rethought national stereotypes and have become more open-minded and tolerant towards diversity, in terms of age, nationality and abilities, and cultural differences. On the other hand, they have also learned to appreciate their own culture, but not only as part of their own national culture, but rather as a part of a European culture. This way they will value a unified Europe in the future.