Educators’ Consultation in Hamburg links ICCS findings to democratic school development

During the fall term, students from the Faculty for Education, Psychology and Human Movement of the University of Hamburg work on the ICCS 2009 European Report and on quantitative methods for investigating and evaluating democratic school development.

During the 2-day workshop taking place this week, the international perspective on Citizenship Education will be linked to concrete democratic school development projects in the Hamburg region. More input on international perspectives, including ICCS and the Council of Europe’s policy documents, programmes and materials in the field of EDC/HRE will be provided by the German EDC/HRE coordinator Kurt Edler and EWC’s Claudia Lenz.

The workshop is co-organized by the University of Hamburg, the Institute for Teacher Training and School Development in Hamburg and the European Wergeland Centre

In close cooperation, the students from the University of Hamburg together with teams from Hamburg schools (consisting of head teachers, teachers and eventually parent or student representatives) will develop scenarios for school development projects which can be followed up and supported by the students.

The projects resulting from this comprehensive workshop are planned to build the basis for a two semester course in which students can conduct research at the Hamburg schools.

This way of linking recent research findings to educational practice by initiating partnerships between Higher Education and democratic development of schools meets the intentions of the Council of Europe EDC/HRE Charter, stating that research should “provide stakeholders including policy makers, educational institutions, school leaders, teachers, learners, non-governmental organisations and youth organisations with comparative information to help them measure and increase their effectiveness and efficiency and improve their practices.” (Article 12)

The EWC is happy to be a part of this exciting process!