Learning Amidst Disinformation and Social Conflict: Young People and Teachers Co-Constructing Curriculum through Transnational Dialogue (4Cs)

Lead-PI: Lee Jerome, Middlesex University

Consortium: Kathy Bickmore, University of Toronto (OISE); Zrinka Ristic Dedic, Institute for Social Research, Zagreb.

Funders: HRZZ, SHRC, UKRI

 

Summary:

The project aims to address the growing gap between young people’s lived experiences and their schools’ citizenship-relevant curriculum practices, in the contrasting contexts of England, Croatia, and Canada. In this rapidly changing world, inundated with instantaneous but unreliable information and images, existing approaches to teaching about controversial and sensitive issues may not engage with students’ myriad situated experiences, strong emotions, or digital cultures. As co-participants with researchers in collaborative inquiry and dialogue, students and teachers in each local setting will co-construct new educational projects that facilitate meaningful mutual engagement about the difficult and divisive issues and the media sources the youth consider important, mindful of the constraints surrounding teachers’ work. This will enable the project team to elaborate new principles and exemplars of education that can meet contemporary challenges to democracy and peace.