As described in the New Eurydice report: “Citizenship Education at School in Europe - 2017”, Europe faces important challenges. Socio-economic problems, violent extremism and a lack of trust in democratic processes threatens shared European principles of respect for human rights, freedom, equality, tolerance and non-discrimination. Citizen education and supporting young people to become active, informed and responsible citizens are important missions for schools around Europe. In the book “Teacher competences for education for democratic citizenship” (Korneljja Mrnjus: 2012) it is noted that traditional learning methods is not enough to activate our students as democratic citizens. Interaction between school, students and society, where the students make assessments, discussions and activities is a prerequisite. The project "Educating citizens: learning democracy through social action" addresses the priority Development of high-quality skills and competences with a twofold aim, discovered through our schools´ needs analyses. The main objective for the Erasmus+ project is to develop social and civic competences among our students by taking them through a learning journey that completes their social studies and prepares them for active participation in social and political life. It also aims at providing a structured and consistent methodology and tool kit for teachers who would like to teach active citizenship and educate young citizens who can be engaged members of a sustainable society. The four schools participating in this project met in the e-Twinning platform due to similar needs and have together formed the objectives of this project. We could all identify the needs for actual hands on working. Traditional learning methods tends to be very intellectual and with low possibilities of actually implementing new attitudes. The “Citizenship Education at School in Europe - 2017” report have identified four broad areas in order to support students to become active citizens. The four competence areas are: interacting effectively and constructively with others; thinking critically; acting in a socially responsible manner; and acting democratically. These areas will be the framework of our project. To develop our students´ knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in these four areas, in order to become active citizens, will be the main objective of our project. To work with these four areas we have chose to use the Active Citizens Learning Journey as presented by the British Council. This method consists of five steps leading the students towards active participation in their local community in terms of a social action. The four areas mentioned above will work as themes during this process, and give structure to the activities during our work, both in between as well as during the mobilities. The teachers will acquire and become involved in a set of activities that will build up into a whole, and will also be ready to teach skills and competences that are beyond the subject of social studies. The project focuses on doing and will intrinsically encourage participation and engagement. The learning outcomes of this project will feature changed attitudes towards local and global communities, towards participatory democracy and engagement in the sense that teachers, students and parents will experience the need to be not only members, but active agents in their communities, and thus will be empowered to take action when intervention is needed. Thus they will also be able to identify issues and problems, and will have a set of activities and a network of people to cooperate with, and will be able to recruit people and motivate others to join their initiatives. These skills and motivations are crucial and not only ensure the health and sustainability of swiftly changing communities, but ensures the participation in civil society as a dominant participant in decision-making. In harmony with our chosen priority, the partners aim at putting together a methodology and a toolkit shaped by the needs of activating high school students. An important part of the project will therefore be to develop tools for the assessment of the students´ knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in the four areas mentioned above. The toolkit will be disseminated in our respective schools in different ways, student to student colleague to colleague, through our website, blog and through communication in social media.
The project "Educating citizens - learning democracy through social action" started in 2017 with a description from the Eurydice report: “Citizenship Education at School in Europe - 2017” in mind: Europe faces important challenges. Socio-economic problems, violent extremism and a lack of trust in democratic processes threatens shared European principles of respect for human rights, freedom, equality, tolerance and non-discrimination. When summarizing the project in 2021 we can add another challenge that has affected our societies and project; the Covid 19-pandemic. Citizen education and supporting young people to become active, informed and responsible citizens are important missions for schools around Europe. Traditional learning methods are not enough to activate our students as democratic citizens. Interaction between school, students and society, where the students make assessments, discussions and activities is a prerequisite. The project addressed the priority Development of high-quality skills and competences with a twofold aim, discovered through our schools ́ needs analyses. The main objective was to develop social and civic competences among our students by taking them through a learning journey that completes their social studies and prepares them for active participation in social and political life. It also aimed at providing a structured and consistent methodology and tool kit for teachers who would like to teach active citizenship and educate young citizens who can be engaged members of a sustainable society. The “Citizenship Education at School in Europe - 2017” report identified four broad areas in order to support students to become active citizens. The four competence areas are: interacting effectively and constructively with others; thinking critically; acting in a socially responsible manner; and acting democratically. These areas were the framework of our project. To develop our students' knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in these four areas, in order to become active citizens, was the main objective of our project. To work with these four areas we chose to use some of the Active Citizens Learning Journey as presented by the British Council as well as other relevant activities. The project had two main objectives: The first was to prepare students for active citizenship by performing a social action. The second was to create a tool kit for teachers with concrete methods on how to work on active citizenship. The four areas mentioned above worked as themes during the project, and gave structure to the activities during the work, both in between as well as during the mobilities. The project was built on five major steps which led the students towards active participation in their local community in terms of a social action. Each step consisted of several different activities; lectures, workshops, discussions and reflections. The first step was ME, focusing on to formulate a strong sense of identity and culture with increased self-confidence and self-awareness and on the importance of holding assumptions lightly. The second step was ME and YOU and was built around dialogue. The learning outcomes was to practice active listening, learn the ability to support, and learn and share through dialogue, practice questioning skills and to value different perspectives. The third step was WE and focused on the local community and to identify challenges or problems in the nearby area. The fourth step was all about PLANNING a social action to attack the identified problem. The last step in the students' learning journey was to perform the SOCIAL ACTION. The project focused on doing and was intrinsically encouraging participation and engagement. The learning outcomes of the project have featured changed attitudes towards local and global communities, towards participatory democracy and engagement. One student who participated in the project wrote: “During this project, I have learned that students can make change, we just have to get involved and spend time to create change.” The challenges identified by the students were; domestic violence, homelessness, families who can’t afford lunch during school breaks and drug use among young people due to mental illness. All of these challenges in our local communities got worse during the pandemic. It was clear that the students had identified one of the weakest links in their societies, which encouraged them to go on with their social actions despite difficulties due to lock downs and closed societies. The results from the project were more than we could hope for; the students learned not only how to interact, to be critical and to act for real change. They also learned that their voices are heard, that they actually can make a change and how to do it. The skills and experiences they gained in this project will empower them to become active citizens in the future.