Abstract
Building on Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future-CHIEF Project’s understanding of cultural literacy as a social practice that takes place in diverse educational environments (i.e. formal, non-formal and informal), Working Package 4: ‘Qualitative Research in Non-formal Education Settings’ (WP4), led by Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and Daugavpils University, aims to identify how (European) cultural literacy is articulated and practised in non-formal educational settings in the civil society sector. It explores how membership of the collective identities that frame a plural ‘European us’ are negotiated from the bottom-up in different contexts of intercultural communication, and examine how plurality within these collective identities is respected. This process is key to developing effective practical interventions: it centres on teasing out a democratic basis for the construction of a more inclusive European cultural identity by identifying grass-root cultural practices relevant to local communities and young people’s everyday encounters that constitute their experience of inter-cultural dialogue. Civil society institutions and non-formal educational settings provide the best grounds for such research and interventions. The stakeholder’s collaborative projects (also known as the CHIEF mini-projects), resulted from collaborations between CHIEF research teams and the multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) which were established in each country (Croatia, Georgia, Germany, India, Latvia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey and the UK) during the course of CHIEF.
In the UK, we delivered three mini projects. The first of which was a photography and music project, with young people in Coventry. The second was a project to develop an architectural plan improve the public square in a socioeconomically disadvantaged part of the city. Finally, the third was about celebrating the linguistic diversity of immigrant populations in Coventry, an online workshop with practitioners, and a photo competition in a local school and refugee centre. The projects were developed as a result of the ethnographic research findings in consultation with our multi-stakeholders partnership (MSP) group in the UK. Their purpose was to provide safe informal spaces for young people’s cultural expression and intercultural exchange. We secured additional funding from Aston University/UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund to deliver the mini project on language diversity with a local school and the refugee centre in Coventry.
In the UK, we delivered three mini projects. The first of which was a photography and music project, with young people in Coventry. The second was a project to develop an architectural plan improve the public square in a socioeconomically disadvantaged part of the city. Finally, the third was about celebrating the linguistic diversity of immigrant populations in Coventry, an online workshop with practitioners, and a photo competition in a local school and refugee centre. The projects were developed as a result of the ethnographic research findings in consultation with our multi-stakeholders partnership (MSP) group in the UK. Their purpose was to provide safe informal spaces for young people’s cultural expression and intercultural exchange. We secured additional funding from Aston University/UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund to deliver the mini project on language diversity with a local school and the refugee centre in Coventry.
Original language | English |
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Publisher | European Commission |
Number of pages | 83 |
Publication status | Published - 29 Oct 2021 |