Engage - Building together European learning material on Education for Citizenship

"The project ""ENGAGE - Building together European learning material on Education for Citizenship"" ambitions to create a European interactive, innovative, pedagogical and multilingual module on education for citizenship for pupils aged 8-12 and their teachers. The 11 developed modules are divided in 3 clusters as follows: 1- Me and the others: Emotional Identity, Relationship and Conflict resolution, Children’s rights;2- Society and the world: History and memory, Media education, Diversity and discrimination, Sustainable development, Solidarity;3- Participation in democratic society: Human rights, Democracy, Participation.Our partnership brings together 8 organisations in 7 member States:- France: CIDEM - the project leader- France : Union Régionale de la Ligue de l'Enseignement de Bourgogne- Germany: AdB- Austria: Zentrum Polis- Spain: Fundacion CIVES- Poland: Center for Citizenship Education- United Kingdom: CSV- Belgium: DARE Network, a pan European network with 46 members in all the 28 European States, in charge of the dissemination of the project at the European level.All the partners were selected on the ground of their direct expertise regarding the issue of citizenship education and youth work as well as their experience in the management of European project.ENGAGE project was implemented at both national and European levels. In each participating country, the partner was in charge of setting up a national consortium or a ""working group"" on a cross-sectoral composition which brought together several representatives of the education sector: primary and/ lower secondary schools, one or two teachers; one academic researcher, expert on the issue of citizenship education; one State representative or public-body in charge of education policies. The main task was to conduct a national need analysis and assessment regarding education for citizenship curricula, both in terms of content and methodological approaches. This process led to the draft of a theoretical study and an empirical report to each of the countries involved.The results of the 6 national initiatives were put together, which helped in identifing and addressing issues of common concerns and needs and further defining the content of the pedagogical learning material. This work was useful to shape and develop a common content effective to all 6 partners, and at the same time compliant to their specific national context. The developed learning module translated into the 5 languages of the partners, has two thematic issues: civism and living together in harmony, and general interest and democratic participation.The rationale of the project ENGAGE involves the following: European countries integrate citizenship education into their qualification requirements for teachers and schools, in distinct ways within the EU, notably because of the cultural and historical specifics of each Member State. Moreover, in the EU, education for citizenship, understood in both aspects of living together in harmony and democratic participation, is undergoing similar evolutions. In fact, both thematic areas provided are influenced by similar important issues in the EU Member States, such as for example: the younger electorate were becoming increasingly disengaged with the democratic system and most of them lack interest in politics, at the national and European levels, illustrated by significant abstention rates for voters aged 18-25.On the other hand, the major concerns affecting young people are bound up with globalization, which raises questions of major importance to society, such as European integration, migration movements, and ageing population, thus making the “living together"" education problematic.The political and human horizon of the EU is to have 28 distinct people living together in harmony and to nurture the feeling of belonging to the same common destiny. In the context of rising extremism, intolerance, racism, at the European scale, working together in setting up a European and cross-sectoral platform for cooperation and the exchange of good practices is a highly relevant means to face these common challenges. Therefore, these issues call for new ways of organising teaching and learning in the two subject areas of citizenship education. Indeed, the learning material developed in the framework of the project ENGAGE appears to be the right answer that includes curricular content with a bearing on the European dimension of citizenship education.In a nutshell, the project ENGAGE aims at providing educational personnel (formal and informal) a useful and appropriate tool to tackle the issue of a European citizenship education with young pupils. With the relevant learning supports developed in the framework of the project ENGAGE, the module will be able to foster the living together in harmony and the spirit of citizenship at the local, national, regional and European levels."