To highlight recent and ongoing research activities, scholars and other education professionals are invited to publish their views on current research topics and scholarly debates in The EWC Statement Series.
Each year the EWC publish the collection of statements as a booklet, both as a printed and online version.
Latest Statements:
Far Right Mobilization and GenderFar right political activists are not all men, there are also women
among them. This very simple statement has not received enough attention
from activists and educators who are combating against far right
politics. Far right politics also uses its own gender politics as a
mobilizing force.
This statement is summarizing the state of the
art research on far right and gender, giving reasons why educators and
teachers should pay attention to this phenomenon, and listing strategies
to use, and to avoid, while encountering women who are supporting far
right radical actions. The statement also gives suggestions to educators
to consider in their work, as well as references and links for further
readings.
Read the Statement on Far Right Mobilization and Gender
About the Author:
Andrea Peto is an Associate Professor at the Department of
Gender Studies at Central European University in Hungary. She edited thirteen volumes in English, six volumes in
Hungarian, two in Russian. Her works appeared in different languages,
including Bulgarian, Croatian, English, French, Georgian, German,
Hungarian, Italian, Russian and Serbian. She has also been a guest
professor at the universities of Toronto, Buenos Aires, Stockholm and
Frankfurt. Her books include: Women in Hungarian Politics 1945-1951
(Columbia University Press/East European Monographs New York, 2003),
Geschlecht, Politik und Stalinismus in Ungarn. Eine Biographie von Júlia
Rajk. Studien zur Geschichte Ungarns, Bd. 12. (Gabriele Schäfer Verlag,
2007) and together with Ildikó Barna, Political Justice in Budapest
after WWII (forthcoming by CEU Press).
Presently she is working on
gendered memory of WWII and political extremisms. She was awarded by
President of the Hungarian Republic with the Officer’s Cross Order of
Merit of The Republic of Hungary in 2005 and Bolyai Prize by the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2006.
Preventing on-line hate speech through social media and democratic participation
This
statement takes its starting point in the ongoing Council of Europe Campaign
against Hate Speech, which addresses and encourages young people to be responsible agents of social
media.
The author argues that, in order to support young people to become such
agents, educators need to know and understand how students and teachers make use of social
networking sites, and to be aware of the opportunities and risks related to their habits and use of social media. About the Author: 
Vitor Tomé, invited teacher at the New University of Lisbon (where he teaches Media Education), has a degree in Education and a PhD in Media Education. Nowadays he is developing a post-PhD research project at the University of Algarve (Portugal), Catholic University of Milan (Italy) and Centre de Liaison de l’Enseignement et les Médias d’Information (Clemi – Paris). He is working with the Pestalozzi Programme (Social media and democratic participation) and on the campaign No Hate Speech Movement, both from the Council of Europe.
Professional journalist since 1993 he’s the editor of Ensino Magazine, he worked in several research projects in Portugal and abroad: Children and Youth in the News; Media Education in Castelo Branco; Media Against Racism in Sport… He is also a well-known pre-service and in-service teacher trainer in media education (social media, democratic participation and hate speech) in Portugal.
Education for Democratic Citizenship, Human Rights Education and Education for Intercultural Understanding have the common goals to develop attitudes and skills in learners that are more difficult to “trace” then mere factual knowledge or skills. How can learners’ achievements be evaluated, what kind of strategies and methods to use, and which language should be used in order to include evaluation and assessment in the learning process?
Two statements by Michael Byram and Anne Beate Reinertsen address these questions from different angles, and thus, offer valuable perspectives for educators:
About the authors:
Michael Byram ‘read’ languages at Cambridge, taught French and German in secondary and adult education. At Durham University since 1980, now Professor Emeritus, he has trained teachers and researched linguistic minorities and foreign language education.
His most recent book is "From Foreign Language Education to Education for Intercultural Citizenship".
Anne Beate Reinertsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Nord-Trøndelag University College, Levanger, Norway. She holds a PhD from the University of Trondheim, NTNU.
She has been working several years as a high school lecturer and administrator prior to her academic career. She writes about School Reform and Philosophy of Education issues, and is currently preoccupied with quality issues, assessment and action research.
Active, Passive and Standby Citizens
In his statement, Erik Amnå focuses on different patterns of adolescents’ and young adults’ orientations towards civic engagement and political participation.
How is their civic engagement manifested? Where and how is their political participation developed? "... what young people
particularly may bring to democratic life in its various forms is an
electrifying spirit and a developmental perspective, that things in fact
can be changed, peacefully, by the people. The maybe greatest idea
behind youth civic engagement is a conviction that change is possible".
Read the statement 
Erik Amnå, is professor in Political Science at Örebro
University in Sweden. Since 2009, he has been the coordinator of the
multidisciplinary research group 'Youth & Society' (YeS;
www.oru.se/yes), Örebro University, and from 2010-2012 he was the Team
Leader of the EU FP7 Research Project on Processes for processes which
influence democratic ownership and participation in eight European
states.
One of his recent publications is the book “New Forms of
Citizen Participation: Normative Implications” Baden-Baden: Nomos 2010
New media and education: how will educators take up the challenge?
What is the role of the educators in the field of developing digital literacies and what is really at stake in the field? How can teacher education help the profession take up the challenge? These are some of the questions Pascale Mompoint-Gaillard discusses in this article on the challenges and opportunities of
new media and education.
Pascale Mompoint-Gaillard, social psychologist, has worked in the area of intercultural communication, education and leadership training for the past 20 years. Her professional activities in Paris (France) and Seattle (U.S.A.) for 15 years have been in accord with her militant engagement: giving voice to those who are disenfranchised; giving tools helping marginalized communities to organize and have their dignity restored by their active participation.
She has worked in poor relinquished neighbourhoods with immigrant and refugee communities offering community leadership training and capacity building mostly in education and literacy projects.
Today, and since 2006, she is coordinating international teacher education programmes, facilitating a pan-European community of practice geared toward educational issues related to living together in mutual understanding and promoting education for democracy. Her partners are the Council of Europe, the European Wergeland Center (Norway), the Anna Lindh Foundation (Egypt), and French training institutions for teachers and social workers.
Prejudice and Group Focused Enmity
In their Statement
“Prejudice and Group Focused Enmity”, Beate Küpper and Andreas Zick give a thorough introduction into the topic of “prejudice”. Based on theories of Social Psychology, they describe the mechanisms and functions of prejudice, making it clear why stereotypes against vulnerable and out-groups are so hard-necked long lasting.
The authors identify the destructive potential of open and covert prejudices, especially as they form a part of a broader syndrome of “Group Focused Enmity” basing on an assumption of inequality and hierarchy among human groups. According to Küpper and Zick, building learning arenas based on principles of equality and openness can make an important contribution to counteract Group Focused Enmity.
The Authors
Beate Küpper, Dr., Dipl.-Psych., born in 1968, is
Professor for Social Work in group and conflict situations at the
University of Applied Science Niederrhein. She supervised the survey of
Group-focused Enmity in Europe conducted in 2008 in eight countries.
Her
research focuses on intergroup conflict, the link between social status
and prejudice, integration, diversity, the role of religiosity, Social
Dominance Orientation, and gender aspects.
Andreas Zick, Dr.
rer.-nat., phil. habil., Dipl.-Psych., born in 1962, is Professor of
Socialization and Conflict Research at the Faculty of Educational
Science at the University of Bielefeld and a member of the Institute for
Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence. He invented the
study of Group-focused Enmity in Europe and is cooperating in the German
long-term study on Group-focused Enmity (2002-2011). His research
interest in the issue of prejudice dates back to the 1980s
(
www.uni-bielefeld.de/ikg/zick).
Martyn Barrett on Intercultural CompetenceIn his statement, Martyn Barrett places the conceptualization of
Intercultural Competence in the framework of Council of Europe policy
and provides a profound overview regarding theoretical approaches
towards Intercultural Competence. After presenting a range of models,
Barrett provides a working definition widely approved in the scholarly
debate. He identifies central components of Intercultural Competence in
terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes/behaviors and finally presents
two Council of Europe projects which resulted in educational material
that helps to develop learner’s Intercultural Competence.
Read Martyn Barrett's Statement
Martyn Barrett is Professor of Psychology in the Department of
Psychology at the University of Surrey, UK. He is a developmental and
social psychologist but has a strong commitment to multidisciplinary
research, and he is currently working with political scientists,
anthropologists, sociologists, policy analysts and educationists. He
works on processes of national and ethnic enculturation, the development
of prejudice and stereotyping, the identifications and cultural
practices of ethnic minority and mixed-heritage individuals, the
development of the intercultural competences which are required for
successful intercultural dialogue, and the development of political
cognition, attitudes and active citizenship.
He is currently leading an
FP7 project funded by the European Commission entitled Processes
Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP), which is
running from 2009-2012. He is also working as an expert advisor to the
Council of Europe. He is Academic Director of the multidisciplinary
Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism
(CRONEM) at the University of Surrey, and an Academician of the Social
Sciences.
Read More..
connect
Henrik Wergeland (1808 – 1845) was a romantic poet and an important historian. He was an advocate for
democracy, and an eager defender of freedom of faith and freedom of expression.
