THE LAUNCH OF PRACTICE: DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING TO PREVENT RADICALISM IN SCHOOLS

Developing critical thinking is an effective tool to prevent radicalisation in schools and to raise young people’s awareness of multiculturalism and diversity. To achieve these goals, it is important to promote among students the EU common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination.

How can we help teachers in pursuing this difficult task?

Last 22-23 November 2018 CSC Danilo Dolci team organized in Palermo the kick-of meeting of the project PRACTICE – Preventing Radicalism through Critical Thinking Competences. The project involves 7 partners including

Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (coordinator, Italy),
BLINC (Germany),
Merseyside Expanding Horizons (UK),
KMOP (Greece),
Mhtconsult ApS (Danmark),
Verein Multikulturell (Austria),
Fondazione Hallgarten Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca (Italy).

During the meeting in Palermo, all partners had the chance to go through major points of the project, both technical and administrative, but above all to discuss the main themes of the project, such as the two concepts of radicalisation and critical thinking in their national contexts. The main aim of the project is to develop EU-wide continuing professional development (CPD) programme for teachers focussing on promotion of social, civic & intercultural competences & critical thinking of secondary school students.

PRACTICE will last 3 years and will be implemented through various activities that initially involve field research, through interviews and focus groups, to identify needs regarding CPD, critical thinking teaching methods and radicalism prevention in classroom contexts.

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme KA2 Strategic Partnership in the field of School and aims to empower teachers through capacity-building activities to equip them with better tools to address diversity in the classroom and to understand and prevent radicalisation processes in educational settings. The action will involve 56 teachers, 35 schools and 1120 students from 6 different countries.