Educating for Diversity and Democracy: teaching history in contemporary Europe
A starting point for determining quality is that the study of history has a significant role to play in forming the socio-political identity of the future citizens of Europe. It is essential in the promotion of democratic values, the management of socio-cultural diversity and the upholding of human rights, all of which are crucial in sustaining and strengthening European democracies which, whilst increasingly diverse, strive also to be inclusive.
The proposed project is aimed at responding directly to the main present-day challenges with a view to developing policy recommendations on how to teach history for strengthening diverse inclusive democratic societies.
60 years ago the European Cultural Convention asserted that the road to peace passes through education and culture, and accorded a special role to teaching history and languages. This message of the Convention remains equally valid, but needs to be interpreted. We need to show how this message might be put into practice in the context of the increasingly complex and diverse 21st century societies that young people inhabit.