10fold. Stories Against Discrimination

<< Background >>The motivation to apply for the project arose from several needs in the field of adult education and beyond: The target group of the participating educational institutions includes adult basic education and language learners, facing intersectional discrimination, based on gender, race, economic and educational disadvantage. Conventional language learning materials address the needs of this target group inadequately. Based on the premise that adult learners prefer content to which they can relate, the project’s main aim was to offer this particular group interesting material through storytelling. Starting from life stories and making these available to others, the project contributed to the creation of high quality learning materials addressing the realities of disadvantaged groups. In addition to language acquisition, the project also aimed at fostering self-efficacy and political awareness among participants. Developing training material and a workshop on the use of biographic narration and creative formats such as comics, the project reached out to adult trainers as a second target group. Another crucial motivation for applying for this proposal consisted in raising awareness for discrimination among a broader public. << Objectives >>Beyond fostering text competence and communication skills, 10fold aimed to design life-based learning material that provides inspiration for joint reflection and exchange on discrimination and ways to tackle it. The resulting reading book and comic zine, available in English, German and French, can be used together with or independently from each other in classroom. While these two core tangible project outputs aimed to design high quality learning material for adult learners, they also address trainers working in the field. All material is freely available and adaptable to the needs of different groups of learners through various formats. In this regard, 10fold also strived to improve the competences of educators and other adult education staff. In a survey and a transnational workshop, trainers had the opportunity to evaluate the developed materials, leaving enough time to include their feedback before the finalisation of the results. Through the project’s inclusion of artistic means of expression, 10fold raised awareness about intersectional discrimination among a wider public and created synergies between art and adult education.<< Implementation >>During the initial project phase, the project team conducted interviews with protagonists in Vienna and Bordeaux. The guidelines for this activity were elaborated in various online meetings and a transnational partner meeting. Ten women talked about their experiences with different forms of discrimination, based on gender, nationality, educational disadvantage, economic inequality or experiences of war and flight. At the same time, they also depict everyday situations and various ways the protagonists have found to deal with these realities. Subsequently, based on these testimonials, a reading book for use in basic education and language teaching as well as a comic zine in ten chapters were designed. Concrete didactic proposals were tested in a workshop. The project was concluded with two book release events, presenting the comic zine. This was accompanied by a music programme, a presentation by the protagonists themselves, and a live drawing session. Extensive dissemination activities took place during all phases of the project, via the project website, newsletters, social media channels and face-to-face-meetings. << Results >>The project results encompass: 1) A reading book featuring 10 stories in different levels of difficulty (the recommendations regarding previous text competence in the respective language range from A1-B1 according to the CEFR). The compilation is available in German, English and French and has a length of approx. 20 pages. The book also includes 10 didactic suggestions. 2) A comic zine featuring the narration of 10 protagonists available in all partner languages of appr. 60 pages3) A project website, which was set up as a subpage of an existing partner website, allowing for higher visibility and sustainable use.4) A 2-day workshop with adult educators from Austria and France, which was attended by staff as well as external trainers. 13 adult educators from 10 organisations received a certificate of participation of 16 teaching units at the end of the event. 5) A Quality Assurance Report analysing the evaluation of adult educators and consortium partners based on two surveys.6) 2 Book Release Events in Vienna and Bordeaux with over 120 participants. At the Vienna event, all project partners and several protagonists were present. 7) A dissemination report describes the dissemination of the results