About the project

This project aims to develop guidance materials for educators from universities and general education on ethnicity, gender, religion, and introduce didactics to teach empathy, controversies, and inclusion.

By gathering the expertise of four countries facing similar challenges, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Estonia, the project developes 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, most importantly, introduce didactics to teach awareness, develop empathy, respond to controversy, handle offensive comments, and create a safe environment as a prerequisite for inclusion.

The objective of this project is to develop guidance materials for educators from universities and general education on ethnicity, gender, religioon, and introduce didactics to teach empathy, controversies and 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 project’s main output is a didactic material adapted into an e-course for universities and school teachers. This e-course will be run in the local language (except in Hungary) at least once a year. Furthermore, 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 created and publicly available. In addition to intellectual outputs, the consortium will organise two in-service trainings for teachers to address sensitive classroom issues and multiplier events for a larger audience tailored for specific needs in every partner country. 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.

How to use the outcomes?

At the end of this project, teachers will possess the necessary skills and tools to create meaningful and academically relevant discussions on sensitive issues in a well-rounded and inclusive environment. The universities overall will benefit from being able to tackle and respond to challenges that internationalisation may originate. Furthermore, the materials developed during the project can be easily adapted to other contexts where they might be used, i.e., social work, youth work, NGOs, local communities, etc. For a long-term benefit, the project consortium believes in contributing to calm, balanced and constructive discussions on sensitive issues in the modern multicultural society.

Partners: University of Tartu (leading partner), Central European University, University of University of Hradec Králové, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)

Project manager: Heidi Maiberg (University of Tartu)
Official webpage – https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/#project/2019-1-EE01-KA203-051690