Urban Civic Education LAB” is a 24-month strategic partnership involving 3 NGOs from Austria, Germany and Italy. The aim of the project is to enhance the critical thinking of young people living in cities and foster the development of their social, civic and intercultural competences so that these skills can be capitalized in the field of Social Entrepreneurship.
The assumptions of this project idea are based on the fact that nowadays, the diversity of cities take on a new dimension due to globalization; political, economic and social restructuring. Globalization and the increasing interdependency of cities in a network society have led to the accelerated circulation of people, commodities, capital, identities, and images through global space; as well as to the increasing mobility of ideologies, economic principles, policies, and lifestyles. It is recognized then, the need to implement actions to improve the level at which civic and citizenship education is taught.
A study conducted by Eurodyce in 2017 concludes that the two most widespread approaches in Europe are the integration of citizenship education components into other subjects and its mention as a cross-curricular objective. They can each be found in at least thirty education systems in all levels of primary and general secondary education. By contrast, citizenship education is provided as a compulsory separate subject in a much more limited number of education systems: 7 at primary level, 14 at lower and 12 at upper secondary levels.
Because city development has long term implications for current and future residents, above all within European urban areas, it is necessary to implement actions aimed at foster the possibility for young people to have a say in the development of their communities, given that they can provide unique and diverse perspectives on the current forms of the built environment and future plans for their city environment.
Under this perspective, the Urban Civic Education LAB project will design comprehensive educational approaches aiming to develop social entrepreneurship capacities in youngsters living in the urban areas while enhancing the social clout of youngsters as providers of added social value to their communities.
The methodology that will be used will be a combination of non-formal education, civic education, social and entrepreneurship education. These will be utilized instruments to enhance components of a comprehensive and progressive approach to entrepreneurial empowerment, projected on the social issues and civic ethics of urban areas.
Specifying, the partnership will provide a comprehensive pattern of social entrepreneurial empowerment for youngsters living in cities, focusing on the mains challenges affect the urban area?s context, though the following activities:
- – Collection and exchange of good practices;
- – specific Blended Motilities;
– dissemination events.
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Results:
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