DEMOKLEOS - THE KLEOS OF DEMOCRACY IN EUROPEAN SCHOOL

Rethinking Democratic Awareness and Collective Responsibility for a wholeschool approach

No agreement: 2015-1-EL01-KA201-013930, financed by the European Commission as part of the Erasmus Plus Programme, Key Action 2 – “Strategic Partnerships”

Duration: 3 years Starting date: 01/09/2015 Ending date: 31/08/2018

The Project’s Consortium

Coordinator • Directorate of Secondary Education of Piraeus
Greece Partners 1 • Research Centre and Department of European International Studies, Greece, Greece • European University of Cyprus, Cyprus • IONIDIOS MODEL EXPERIMENTAL LYCEUM, Greece • 9th Gymnasium of Piraeus, Greece • 1 epal peiraia, Greece • Agrupamento de Escolas de Pombal, Portugal • Dogas schools, Turkey • Learning for Integration ry, Finland

DEMOKLEOS consists of a harmonious set of Universities, schools and associations and is well distributed throughout the E.U,from Finland to Turkey. It is composed of a highly productive combination of schools, universities and a civil society association. From a pedagogical point of view, it is obvious that this project has a great potential, as it covers the whole educational range. The Acronym The Acronym DEMOKLEOS is based on the etymology DEMOS= meaning whole citizen living and Kléos= fame Kléos is a term used in epic Homeric poetry that means immortal fame. An Homeric hero can earn kléos through his courage. A monument can bring kléos, as can reports of one's offspring's virtuous deeds. Achilles himself says it in [Iliad,] Rhapsody 9, Line 413: ‘I’m going to die, but this story will be like a beautiful flower that will never wilt.”. In ancient Polis (the City), Democracy was inextricably linked to kléos, or fame. This innovative form of government offered ordinary citizens the opportunity of writing their name in history through active participation in the Assembly. The citizens of the ancient cities exercised sovereignty in their city.

General objectives The overall objective is related to current challenges to which European school has to adopt a pro-active attitude and handle Democratic Awareness and Collective Responsibility as a s ethic. Achieving this implies the need for a sustained dialogue about a whole school approach. DEMOKLEOS must adapt to the realities of the 21st century which sees the citizens requesting greater participation in public decision-making, an aspiration heightened by the emergence of the new information technologies and the social networks. DEMOKLEOS with a strong commitment to European integration and a special concern for issues and their related areas which have been highlighted by a Survey Needs Analysis addressed to the teachers of the Consortium notably as:

• Political literacy

• History / remembrance and Democracy in Historical Perspective in Europe

• Critical debating about Teaching of controversial issues

• Digital democracy

• School Democratic governance

• Challenges of democratic schools in a globalised and pluralistic world

• Human rights and a sustainable environment

• Teacher professionalism on Democratic Key Competences Conflict and consensus: the project needs to recognize that divergence of opinion may be inherent enhanced school engagement and tools should provide opportunities for negotiation, mediation and consensus building.

Aims

• mapping democratic and antidemocratic attitudes in European school education and providing a picture of the main populist and racist organizations operating in seven European countries;

• analyzing hate speech communication strategies to understand how populist organizations have been appropriating new media, in the last years, to spread their violent messages in young generation;

• deconstructing populist hate speech towards the 'other' and raising young people's and minorities' awareness: through the analysis of media produced by populist organisations, the aim is to deconstruct stereotypes relating to race, gender, disabilities and sexual orientation, and make young people and minorities aware of how new media misrepresent them;

• empowering young people through e-engagement: coherently with media literacy education perspectives, which emphasizes people's empowerment rather than media censorship, the aim is to play on a participatory and active approach to promote children's voice appropriation and political literacy skills;

• providing teachers' training about media literacy and populism/racism to reinforce and amplify the project's impact, and developing an online environment with resources on new media, hate speech towards the 'other' and racism.

To achieve these aims teachers and researchers the partner institutions work together on research, development and implementation of training tools and resources.

DEMOKLEOS focus on the “target groups” in the field of Education – first and foremost young people. The aim is to inspire them to become active contributors to European integration in a context of increasing intercultural and religious diversity. The other major target group are all educators and teachers in their roles as facilitators