During recent years, universities in the participant countries of this project, have set internationalisation goals, both to compensate declining populations (especially in Estonia and Hungary) as well as to stay competitive. Together with a wave of migration, which also affects these countries at different intensity, the four participating countries have faced a new demographic situation. Although the number of immigrants, whether foreign students or other, may be not significant, there are debates in the society about the immigration, on one hand, and on the other hand schools and universities have to adapt to a changing student profile. Issues can raise when there are students from different backgrounds in the classroom whose views may be conflicting between each other or with those expressed by the teacher. But even without a diverse classroom, certain topics can be controversial, like pay gap, political conflicts or ethnic issues. So far, universities in this project countries have paid little attention on how to address these issues neutrally without creating unnecessary conflicts, and it has been up to the teacher to find the most suitable method. The objective of this project is to gather the expertise of four countries facing similar challenges, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Estonia, involving experts from the associated partner from Sweden, and to develop guidance material for educators from universities and general education. This material will discuss the nature of issues related to ethnicity, gender, religion or political behaviour and, the most importantly, introduce didactics to teach awareness, develop empathy and respond to controversy, handle offensive comments, create safe environment as a prerequisite for inclusion. These didactical tools will be developed jointly, in English and later adapted to local needs and translated into local languages for reaching a wider audience. The participants of the project are firstly around 30 teachers of the participating institutions. The target of around 300 people will be outreached by multiplier events, organised by every partner at the end of the project and gathering educators, education ministries and relevant NGOs. Meanwhile, at least 800 people during the last year of the project is expected to be affected by the project results due to the use of didactic material and MOOCs developed in the course of the project. As the materials will be publicly available and promoted to social and youth workers, the numbers can be even higher. The main output of the project is a didactic material adapted into an e-course for universities and school teachers. This e-course will be run in local language (except in Hungary) at least once a year. Three MOOCs on Islam, gender issues and radicalisation will be developed for a larger audience and run at least once a year. In addition to that, a methodological toolbox for teachers will be developed and publicly available. In addition to intellectual outputs, the consortium will organise two in-service trainings for teachers on addressing sensitive issues in the classroom, and multiplier events for a larger audience tailored for specific needs in every partner country. In order to reach the objectives, experts from the partner universities as well as the associated partner will contribute with their expertise both to building the content and developing the methodology. Each partner university is responsible for each intellectual output, which will be tested and assessed through trainings. The e-courses and MOOCs launched during the third year of the project will provide valuable feedback meant to improve the materials. At the end of this project, teachers will possess necessary skills and tools for creating meaningful and academically relevant discussions on sensitive issues in well-rounded and inclusive environment. The universities overall will benefit from being able to tackle and respond to challenges that internationalisation may originate. The materials developed during the project can be easily adapted to other contexts where it might be used, i.e. social work, youth work, NGOs, local communities, etc. In a long term benefit, the project consortium believes to contribute to calm, balanced and constructive discussions on sensitive issues in the multicultural modern society.
The general objective of this project was to create materials that raise awareness of sensitive topics, provide know-how on them, and prevent, tackle and resolve conflicts regarding them in the classroom. All the materials are adapted into an online environment where they are approachable to a wider audience. We created several tools to tackle sensitive topics. First, we developed guidance material for universities and general education educators. In addition, we created MOOC-s, e-courses, and e-modules on specific topics that support educators with specific knowledge on the matter and know-how on addressing it with the students. Last, a methodological toolbox for teachers was developed to provide methodological and didactic tools for them. All the named materials were developed jointly, in English or the local language, and later adapted up to some point to local needs and translated into English or the local languages for reaching a wider audience. Also, the project aimed to include educators in the project's development as much as possible. We did it through two joint-staff training sessions and multiplier events from general education schools, relevant NGO-s and education ministries.
In recent years, universities in the participant countries of this project have set internationalisation goals to compensate declining populations and stay competitive. Although the number of immigrants, whether international students or others, maybe not be significant, there are debates in society about immigration. Issues can arise when students from different backgrounds in the classroom whose views may conflict with each other or the teacher's opinions. Studies show that teachers do not discuss topics in the classroom if they do not feel comfortable around this topic. While some materials about discussing sensitive topics in the classroom, most of them have been created for the Western European context. The project's authors saw the need for materials that take into account the Eastern and Central European history, cultures, and political state of play. During the project's implementation period, the necessity for the objectives has only increased (Covid-19, rise of populism, Russia's war in Ukraine). The authors see that the materials also address and support educators in preparing, preventing and tackling situations we did not foresee.