Great success for the Leibniz research centre “Inclusive Citizenship”: The European Commission will provide funding for four new projects of the Institute of Didactics of Democracy at Leibniz University Hannover. Over a period of three years, the four new EU projects led by Prof. Dr. Dirk Lange will be in receipt of funding amounting to 1.1 million euros. Furthermore, the institute is involved as a partner in additional EU projects. In order to ensure that the projects are implemented in a sustainable manner and the results can be transferred into practice, the international project consortia comprise universities as well as public authorities and civic institutions.
The projects MUSIC and ALL4INCLUSION focus on inclusion and transferable skills of socially disadvantaged groups. In this context, MUSIC aims to raise awareness of inclusion of international students amongst university staff – especially with regard to refugees and immigrants from third countries – as well as to organise appropriate inclusion processes. International students will benefit from the improved skills of staff in advisory positions. Within the scope of the project, international partner organisations will develop a curriculum, which will be updated regularly. The outcomes of the evaluation will be integrated into a didactic concept published in a handbook.
ALL4INCLUSION will develop adult education strategies to promote social inclusion of disadvantaged groups – in particular members of social groups with little formal education affected by marginalisation. In order to increase social inclusion, the project will identify important social and digital skills. Based on this, researchers will develop educational material for adult education to strengthen these skills. The project therefore addresses teaching staff in adult education.
TEACH and CLIO will provide insights into the problematic nature of conspiracist, right-wing populist and misanthropic positions in educational contexts. CLIO investigates discriminatory language. Recently, misanthropic remarks have increased significantly. Discriminatory actions also occur more frequently in vocational schools and companies. The purpose of the project is to raise awareness of racism – both among teachers and students. For this purpose, CLIO will establish a network of vocational schools and other facilities. The intention is to create a democratic school culture that eases the burden on teachers and actively involves students.
In the context of demographic change, educational projects focus more strongly on adult education facilities. To address the growing presence of conspiracy theories in Europe the project TEACH intends to analyse the extent to which these phenomena affect adult education. In addition, researchers will develop further education programmes to promote combating conspiracy theories and false information as a crucial task in adult education. For this purpose, specific training opportunities for teaching staff will be implemented in these fields, especially in political and cultural education.
Note to editors:
For further information, please contact Christoph Wolf, member of research staff at the Institute of Didactics of Democracy, Leibniz University Hannover (Tel. +49 511 762 17318, Email c.wolf@ipw.uni-hannover.de).
