The values of inclusion and active citizenship that Europe has always promoted create a diverse society with multiple coexisting religions, cultures, and ideologies. But in recent years, as a result of the very severe social and economic crises suffered (the armed conflict in Syria from 2015 to 2020, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022) exclusion-promoting groups have gained strength and reached government positions in various European countries, threatening its values of diversity and religious, cultural, and ideological coexistence. Since 2015, secondary classrooms started becoming polarized at an alarming rate, with a very worrying growth of marginalization and violent radicalization of students, leading them to fall into the clutches of hateful ideologies and hate speech. Thus, in order to put a stop to the uncontrolled growth of ideologies of hatred, especially islamophobia, CCIV and the entities of this partnership have carried out the project “DIALOGUE, EDUCATION, AND RESPECT IN THE CLASSROOM: THE ROAD TO A PLURAL AND DEMOCRATIC EUROPE” with an innovative methodology based on shared leadership and interreligious dialogue, that has generated a joint work between teachers (within the classroom) and the educational community and social or cultural entities (in non-teaching hours) capable of detecting, tackling, and preventing behaviors and dynamics that lead both aggressors and victims to school dropout, loss of opportunities, and exclusion. With this project, we have contributed to fight against the hate speeches that promote discrimination in the classroom based on culture or religion among others, thanks to reinforcing the collaboration between them, but also between the different agents inside and outside schools, and promoting preventive and early intervention approaches through collaborative and holistic approaches to learning and teaching. The partnership comprised by CCIV and INTERED (Spain), NJINGA MBANDE and PONTES (Italy), and EFOMW (Belgium) integrating schools and Muslim cultural organizations from different European countries has created truly impactful results within the project, which have enhanced diversity and peaceful coexistence in the classroom, trained teachers in banishing hatred and islamophobia, and offering all students, including those from migrant backgrounds and/or diverse cultures or religions, more effective educational processes, greater opportunities for inclusion, and personal, social, and labor success in the future. The cultural-religious conflicts in secondary school classrooms we targeted were so significant that teachers felt alone and without support to promote effective inclusion in their classrooms, detect hate speech in time, and fight it. Therefore, the results created within this project had the collaboration of both experts and teachers, to impact directly on this detected need. These results are: ‒ THE METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE TO MANAGE DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM THROUGH SHARED LEADERSHIP (O1), to train teachers in the detection of ideologies of hatred in the classroom and fight them (group dynamics, games, and the creation of collaborative networks among the students themselves). ‒ EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS TO PROMOTE DIVERSITY (R1), both formal and non-formal, on tolerance and diversity in the classroom, and to steer students away from radicalism and hateful ideologies. ‒ THE MANUAL OF GOOD PRACTICES TO MANAGE DIVERSITY IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES (R2), aimed at promoting inclusion in non-formal spaces. These results have had a huge impact not only in the educational field, with their support to educational centers and policy makers, but also on our entities and target groups. They have been disseminated to dozens of schools in the participating countries thanks to the work of the partner and collaborating entities, culminating in the large Multiplier Event in Valencia (Spain) coordinated by CCIV, effectively achieving the goal of fighting hate speech in European classrooms and reducing the possibility of many young people falling into radicalism. Throughout these 2 and a half years, this arduous work was made enormously difficult by the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, which deeply impacted the promoting entities, who had to devote most of their resources to supporting their members (groups in a state of exclusion) left in a critical situation. However, despite all of this, and thanks to everyone’s efforts, it was ultimately possible to meet all the objectives through the results developed, which are having a very significant impact on secondary classrooms in our countries.
With the project DIALOGUE, EDUCATION, AND RESPECT IN THE CLASSROOM we wanted to contribute to fight against these hate speeches that promote discrimination in the classroom based on culture or religion among others, thanks to an innovative methodology based on shared leadership and interreligious dialogue, to generate a joint work between teachers (within the classroom) and the educational community and social or cultural entities (in non-teaching hours) capable of detecting, combating, and preventing behaviors and dynamics that lead both aggressors and victims without remedy to school dropout, loss of opportunities, and exclusion. This is a strategy capable of enhancing the European diversity of culture and faith for peaceful coexistence, training teachers to build classrooms free of hatred and islamophobia, and offering all students, including those from migrant backgrounds and/or diverse cultures or religions, more effective educational processes, greater opportunities for inclusion, and personal, social, and labor success in the future.
CCIV and the entities of this partnership requested this project due to the need to stop the uncontrolled growth of ideologies of hatred, especially islamophobia, which has been detected in recent years in the classrooms of schools across Europe. As a result of the very severe social and economic crises we have suffered (from the migration crisis derived from the conflict in Syria from 2015 to 2020, Brexit, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022) groups promoting exclusion have been strengthened by reaching government positions in various European countries, attacking the values of diversity and religious, cultural, and ideological coexistence promoted by Europe. Since 2015 there has been a progressive and alarming polarization of classrooms, with a very worrying growth of marginalization and violent radicalization of students. Regardless of their origin or culture, young people are not immune to the clutches of the ideologies of hatred, leading both aggressors and victims to educational failure and to marginality, which facilitates their exclusion. And teachers do not have enough support from the environment to detect and combat it.