There are many things we wanted to achieve by implementing the project. We wanted to achieve a better way of delivering our social society knowledge classes. We wanted to see if there was any material we could convert into Norwegian. We wanted to bring our curriculum to them, and provide them with new materials and content if they wanted to access it/use it. We wanted to see what themes and topics are taught in Germany and Netherlands in these classes. Sections of the course content may differ quite a lot, as many of the topics which are taught can be very broad, in general. We also wanted to examine how tight these courses are interlinked with language learning. In both Holland and Germany, these classes are taught near the end of a persons language learning (around the b1 mark). In Norway, we prefer to usually give them at the start of their residency/language learning, but we do so in a language which they understand (ie. their native tongue where ever possible). In Oslo last year, Servicesenter held Samfo courses in 24 different languages, with English, Arabic, Thai, Somali being the most popular.
We applied for this project owing to the fact that Netherlands and Germany have a long tradition of working with immigrants, and in doing so, work in ways which could assist our own services in Norway. We purposely selected Duisburg, a city in north west Rhine area of Germany, as it has long been seen as being one of Germanys poorest city with numerous challenges in terms of unemployment, poverty, social exclusion as well as a high level of its population having a migrants/immigrant background. Germany and Holland both have a tried and trusted samfunnskunnskap (aka samfo, aka Social Society Knowledge course) which extends of up to 100 hours. Because these curriculae are larger and more developed than our own, we were eager to experience and examine the current curriculums these countries use. What could we take with us to Norway? What could we incorporate. What do they do differently? Our main need at the time of the project application was to find more content to teach in a course as we expanded the Norwegian version from 50 hours to 75 hours. In addition to this other factors such as assessing different methods of teaching and its delivery, as well as cross sectoral support.