We are living in a century of identity, in which globalization has forced us to deal with an increasing diversity of people and neo-liberalism has challenged the idea of the welfare state and thus equality. Both developments stress the importance of the individual and the concept of identity: the answer to the question ‘who am I?’ becomes more and more important. Especially for young people it is difficult to find a balance between the diversity in society and their own identity. The question of identity is closely linked to the concept of emotions. In Europe, we can identify several forms of fear, e.g. the fear of terrorism, of immigrants, of being left behind and of no longer being in control but ruled by an elite. This fear can easily be turned into anger or hatred, for example by far-right populists. We therefore need a culture of responsibility and reciprocity. A contribution to achieve this is by values education (values clarification and values communication). In this way, one gets a more clear idea, how to position oneself within a diversity of opinions and which explanations there might be for own standpoints but also for the viewpoints of others. The aim of the EVALUE project is to realize this within a European context. Despite the urge for citizenship and values education, research shows, that teachers in all European countries struggle to teach about controversial issues and that citizenship and values education is often neglected in schools. The reasons for this are diverse, but pressure to adhere to the curriculum, lack of expertise in developing and guiding teaching activities and the absence of suitable tools are some of them. In reaction to this, governments emphasize the importance of citizenship and values education and look to develop various initiatives. The aim of the project is therefore to fill this gap by offering means and teaching materials fit for this purpose and to match curriculum needs. It also aims to provide strategies for developing own teaching ideas, while using the developed tools in the role of curriculum maker. The first output will be a web tool based on the high-quality survey data of the European Values Studies (EVS) and European Social Survey (ESS). This tool will allow to create maps and possibilities of various map modes for inquiry, values dimensions (graphically displayed in value crosses) about important contemporary themes such as migration, environment, democracy, solidarity and tolerance based on sociological theories. It will also include the opportunity to fill in a short questionnaire based on the survey material, of which the answers can be used to place and compare oneself within the values dimensions with diverse respondent groups, the possibility to create a protected digital classroom for students or to cooperate with other school classes (in an exchange setting). Secondly, a matrix will be developed, which will allow teachers to analyse curricula to determine for which subjects and topics the web tool can be used. This matrix will be applied for the participating countries. Thirdly, the project will result in an educational framework on the basis of which own lessons can be created using the web tool and scientific background information and suitable strategies for values education will be explained. Furthermore, in cooperation with secondary schools, exemplary teaching materials will be developed and tested in different application contexts (type and level of schools, age of pupils) to show how the web tool can be used in secondary education. The goal here is to arrive at values clarification and values communication. EVALUE here is not just an acronym, but also a mission: teaching about values- and citizenship should lead to critical and higher order thinking. The target group is the field of secondary education, e. g. teachers and students. They will be reached by universities of education through their various networks with teachers and by means of their students, who work as trainee teachers in the secondary schools. This international consortium of partners (universities in Turkey, Slovakia, Belgium and the Netherlands and the NGO EUROGEO) faces the described situation of rising polarization in different ways. This offers the opportunity to learn from each other in various approaches and furthermore prevents cultural biases, which is utterly important, when it comes to a tool and materials, which should be usable Europe-wide.
The question of identity is closely linked to the concept of emotions. In Europe, we can identify several forms of fear, e.g. the fear of terrorism, of immigrants, of being left behind, and of no longer being in control but ruled by an elite. These fears can easily be turned into anger or hatred, for example by far-right populists. We therefore need a culture of responsibility and reciprocity. A contribution to achieve this is by values education: values clarification and values communication. In this way, one gets a more clear idea on how to position oneself within a diversity of opinions and which explanations there might be for own standpoints but also for the viewpoints of others. The aim of the EVALUE project was to realize this within a European context; the primary target group were teachers (and pupils) in secondary education. In our view, EVALUE is not just an acronym, but also a mission: teaching about values and citizenship should lead to critical and higher order thinking.
Scholars and educators have noticed that the changing world we live in (e.g. globalization has forced us to deal with increasing diversity; neo-liberalism has challenged the idea of the welfare state and thus equality) has increased the significance of the individual and the concept of identity: the answer to the question ‘who am I?’ becomes more and more important. Especially for young people, it can be difficult to find a balance between the diversity in society and their own identity. Citizenship and values education can help here, and governments stress its importance. Despite the urge for this type of education, research shows that teachers in all European countries struggle to teach about controversial issues and citizenship and values education is often neglected in schools. The reasons for this are diverse, but pressure to adhere to the curriculum, lack of expertise in developing and guiding teaching activities, and the absence of suitable tools are some of them. The aim of the EVALUE project therefore was to fill this gap by offering (interactive) tools and teaching materials fit for this purpose which also match curriculum needs. The project also aimed to provide teachers with strategies for developing own teaching ideas, using the developed tools in the role of curriculum maker.