Respect for and tolerance to diversity are fundamental European values. Nevertheless, the recent economic and financial crisis reinforced significantly the negative attitudes towards the „others” that the increased mobility evoked after the EU Enlargement. Nowadays, the flow of refugees has fueled into the existing hostility towards people with different cultural background. Diversity has become a challenge that people face and deal with on a daily basis.

Acknowledging that the educational institutions are a place where diversities meet and interact on a daily basis and that they are the first pillar of the societal integration and acculturation, the project Teach-D will address the topic of Diversity Management at school, focusing on the teachers as key actors in the process of transfer of knowledge, values, skills and competences. In contrast to the numerous initiatives providing the teachers will skills and competences of ‘how to teach diversity’, the current project will focus on one significant gap, identified in the teachers’ training:

¨ WHY TO TEACH diversity,

¨ HOW TO TEACH in diversity and

¨ HOW TO MANAGE diversity.

Project goals and activities

The project envisions five types of activities to reach the set goals:

• Teachers’ empowerment through:
  • Development of solid knowledge and understanding of diversity management (training packages, handbooks, methodology)
  • Enabling the knowledge-based transfer and development of civic competences from teachers to their students (testing and monitoring)
  • Raising awareness about diversity management mechanisms and development of new skills and approaches to diversity (dissemination activities)
• Supporting the early societal integration at school level through recruiting educational staff aware of and knowledgeable about culture-sensitive learning, mechanisms for mitigating intercultural conflicts, facilitating intercultural communication
• Establishment of an international educators’ network for real time self-support in addressing diversity challenges and of a mobile application for facilitating the network’s interaction
• Development of a training module and open educational resources in diversity management for teachers and
•  Adapting the developed training package for online training in diversity management for teachers.

Target groups

• Teachers and educators from all levels of preschool and school education
• Teachers and educators working with refugees and migrants
• School management and support staff
• Public officials responsible for school management and policy making at the level of primary and secondary education

Partners

Among the project partners there are research institutions, a school with pedagogical profile, associations of educators and other organizations promoting new technologies and media in education from eight different countries:

• European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), Germany (lead partner)
• European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC), Italy
• Mercator European Research Centre at the Fryske Akademy, The Netherlands
• Workers Education and Training College (WETCO), Bulgaria
• Asociatia Paradigme Educationale, Romania
• Danmar Computers LLC, Poland
• Kairos Europe Limited, UK
• Liceul Pedagogic “Mircea Scarlat” Alexandria, Romania
• MEDEA: Media and Learning, Belgium
• CSP – Innovazione Nelle ICT, Italy

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.