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Teaching 'Europe' to enhance EU cohesion: European integration as a subject of study in secondary school education in the 28 member States
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Mar 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

This "Learning EU@School" project aims to undertake an initial analysis of how ‘Europe’ (EU-related topics) is taught in the final two years of compulsory education in the 28 member States of the European Union. Since this project aims to reach conclusions that affect the European society as a whole in a comparable manner, it seems necessary to focus the analysis on the final two years of compulsory secondary education, which encompasses the entire European population aged between 14 and 18 years old -- depending upon the legal system in place in each member State (see Table 1 of Annex for details). This is the age at which the awakening of civic and political awareness begins and at which values that are more likely to persist on a lifelong basis are established. The project will be performed using the contents of textbooks in the main Social Sciences (SS) subjects in which the EU is treated with a minimal degree of depth over the last five-year period. EU-related information is dealt with in various SS subjects which might differ among countries. But since History is the only subject which is common to all the European education systems, this project with take History across the EU plus a second SS subject which is representative for our purpose but which might significantly differ across the EU (i.e., Geography, Civilizenship education, etc.). The fieldwork concerning this project will thus be carried out by history teachers working in each of the educational systems analyzed, thereby overcoming the main obstacle to carrying out this work: knowledge of the 30 different languages in the textbooks in use in the EU. These teachers will be selected with the help of the European Association of History Educators (Euroclio), a unique association in this field. The fieldwork will be undertaken following a detailed questionnaire, and under the supervision of the research team for this project, led by Fernando Guirao. An ambitious dissemination strategy will follow.
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