Cultura Universalis – Enhancing Intercultural competence through art

Globalization has brought a wide range of cultures in closer contact than ever before while Europe itself is a context of great cultural diversity. Yet, evidence shows that there is a widespread lack of intercultural competence (IC) and prosocialness both in national educational curricula and the general population, as well. This is emphatically confirmed by the general social tense on immigration and social inclusion issues. Since research confirms that IC and prosocialness are to be developed early onwards our main target group is pupils 7-14 years old, so as to provide them with skills and cultural incentives which are not easy to develop otherwise. In this context, arts and culture serve as multipliers in achieving our objectives and as a means for ensuring children’s attentiveness.

The Cultura Universalis project intends to develop and practice a collection of creative culture-based activities workshops and an interactive online game to enhance intercultural competence and prosocialness through art in children aged 7-14. Approximately 250 students and 100 teachers will be involved directly in the development and testing of the outputs, while the results of the project will be disseminated to more than 9800 persons.

The C.U. project foresees the development of 3 Intellectual Outputs.

IO1 – a Training Programme for Intercultural competence enhancement through art targeted to pupils, including also a webinar for teachers on the training methodology and implementation. The content of the training will be based on various forms of arts.

IO2 – an interactive game, aiming at testing the knowledge acquired during the Training programme and furthermore teaching/testing attitudes, beliefs and enhancing students’ prosocial skills towards their peers with diverse characteristics, origin and religious background.

IO3 – a digital handbook for children and a digital companion for teachers aiming at providing them with guidance before gaming, assisting them during gaming, and also including additional creative activities for intercultural competence improvement.

Partners:

COOPERATIVE D’INITIATIVE JEUNES – France
ISON PSYCHOMETRICA – Greece
RADOSAS IDEJAS – Latvia
DEP INSTITUT SL – Spain
Akademia Humanistyczno-Ekonomiczna w Lodzi – Poland
ELLINOAGLIKI AGOGI – Greece