BACKGROUND: The European school systems were originally created for relatively homogenous societies. In recent years, many European countries have changed into the multicultural societies due to globalization and immigration. Thus, European schools have faced challenges in a relatively short time. The schools should find new ways to foster social cohesion of students and develop students' civic engagement and participation based on European democratic values. For the future, students should be equipped with the right knowledge, skills and attitudes. There is a strong need to develop students' participation and citizenship education in a way which provides the background knowledge necessary to maintain a civilized society. OBJECTIVES: Participation in associational activities can facilitate students' social cohesion, participation at schools and in local communities and it promotes active citizenship. However, from the perspectives of schools, the cooperation with associations and external experts has often been short-lived by nature and the pedagogical benefits have remained limited. In this project, to promote students' active participation and citizenship, we will develop associational activities (with NGOs, decision makers and local expertise) of the schools. Simultaneously, we will improve multicultural preparation of teachers - we will give experiences for teachers to work with multicultural student groups. As a project result, we will introduce teaching methods which support integration of local expertise into teaching in a pedagogically effective way. The students will, in turn, learn civics (responsibilities, duties and rights) and principles of democracy (decision making systems) and they gain real experiences on working with different organizations through school activities. This is apt to strengthen their experience of participation, social cohesion and the creation of European identity among students. METHODOLOGY: In practice, totally six European schools will organize international workshops for both teachers and students. Each workshop has a topic related to civic skills and citizenship. In these workshops, teachers will exchange good practices among the schools in terms of participation and active citizenship and they learn to plan and organize pedagogical activities with associations finding new ways to work with them. The students will participate in these workshops. Pre-planned and concrete pedagogical activities, organized in concert with associations, NGOs and decision makers offer students genuine experiences of participation. The students gain real experiences on working with different organizations through school activities. This is apt to strengthen their experience of participation, social cohesion and European identity among students. The workshops provide also opportunities to increase students' school motivation and prevent social exclusion. Between the international meetings, the schools work on developmental tasks of the project - they develop schools' associational activities developing the methods of students' participation and civics. Students produce presentations, performances and write stories about citizenship and participation. Teachers work on a research, which compares students' participation and the teaching of civics among European schools. RESULTS: The project creates a pathway for motivating and supporting students' participation in school, local community and society. Simultaneously, teachers learn to cooperate with associations and external experts and learn to integrate those activities into teaching. The international context provides unique opportunities to exchange good practices and develop new ways of cooperating with experts outside school. New teaching methods, especially student-centered and activating methods will be put into use. We will publish two publications (e-books). Teachers will do a small research about participation and civic skills - how these have been taken into consideration in national core/local curricula and in practice in different European countries. The first e-book includes the research and also detailed descriptions of the pedagogical activities with associations and decision makers in the project. Thus, the readers will get new ideas and examples how to develop teaching in cooperation with external experts and decision makers. In addition, we will share the produced learning material in national and European public networks/platforms, such as eTwinning. Another e-book will include students' stories and illustrations about participation, citizenship and their experiences on the associational activities. The stories will be published both in native languages and in English. This part of the project will develop students' basic skills such as literacy and language as well as it educates students to be active citizens. It also raises awareness of each one's responsibilities, duties and rights in Europe.
The European school systems were originally created for relatively homogenous societies. In recent years, many European countries have changed into the multicultural societies due to globalization and immigration. Thus, European schools have faced challenges in a relatively short time. The schools should find new ways to foster social cohesion of students and develop students' civic engagement and participation based on European democratic values. For the future, students should be equipped with the right knowledge, skills and attitudes. There is a strong need to develop students' participation and citizenship education in a way which provides the background knowledge necessary to maintain a civilized society. Participation in associational activities can facilitate students' social cohesion, participation at schools and in local communities and it promotes active citizenship. However, from the perspectives of schools, the cooperation with associations and external experts has often been short-lived by nature and the pedagogical benefits have remained limited. In this projet, we promoted students' active participation and citizenship, We developed associational activities (with NGOs, decision makers and local expertise) of the schools. In addition, we improved multicultural preparation of teachers - we gave experiences for teachers to work with multicultural student groups. As a project result, we introduced teaching methods which support integration of local expertise into teaching in a pedagogically effective way. The students learned, civics (responsibilities, duties and rights and principles of democracy and they also gained real experiences on working with different organizations through school activities. This was apt to strengthen their experience of participation, social cohesion and the creation of European identity among students. In practice, totally six European schools organized international workshops for both teachers and students. Each workshop had a topic related to civic skills and citizenship. In these workshops, teachers exchanged good practices among the schools in terms of participation and active citizenship and they learned to plan and organize pedagogical activities with associations finding new ways to work with them. Pre-planned and concrete pedagogical activities, organized in concert with associations, NGOs and decision makers offered students genuine experiences of participation. The students gained real experiences on working with different organizations through school activities. This was apt to strengthen their experience of participation, social cohesion and European identity among students. The workshops provided also opportunities to increase students' school motivation and prevent social exclusion. Between the international meetings, the schools worked on developmental tasks of the project - they developed schools' associational activities by developing students' participation and civics. Students produced presentations, performances and wrote stories about citizenship and participation. Teachers worked on a research, which compares students' participation and the teaching of civics among European schools. The project created a pathway for motivating and supporting students' participation in school, local community and society. Simultaneously, teachers learned to cooperate with associations and external experts and learned to integrate those activities into teaching. The international context provided unique opportunities to exchange good practices. New teaching methods, especially student-centered and activating methods were put into use. We published two publications (e-books). Teachers conducted a small research about participation and civic skills - how these issuues have been taken into consideration in national core/local curricula and in practice in different European countries. The first e-book includes the research and also examples of the pedagogical activities with associations and decision makers. Another e-book includes students' stories and illustrations about participation, citizenship and their experiences on the associational activities. The stories were published both in native languages and in English. This part of the project developed students' basic skills such as literacy and language as well as it educated students to be active citizens. It also raised awareness of each one's responsibilities, duties and rights in Europe.