The HAND in HAND project
The HAND in HAND project, “Social and Emotional Skills for Tolerant and Non-discriminative Societies (A Whole School Approach)”, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Key Action 3 Programme of the European Union and the Government of the Republic of Croatia – Office for Cooperation with NGOs, provides a unique opportunity for collaboration on the international level to address an urgent EU policy problem (migrant crisis) which calls out for our prompt response. The project is based on the Declaration on promoting citizenship and the common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education (Paris, 2015) that agrees to strengthen actions in the field of education at national, regional and local level and aims at building more tolerant and non-discriminant environments (schools) for every student to feel accepted and be able to reach his or hers potential including immigrant (and refugee) students.
The project builds on the importance of social, emotional and intercultural skills (‘SEI skills’) for building inclusive societies and to prevent segregation and discriminative bullying by enhancing SEI skills of all students and school staff (the ‘whole-school’ approach).
The HAND in HAND project will create and apply an innovative HAND in HAND program for SEI skills development for students and school staff that will be tested using experimental design with control group across consortium countries.
The project aims at changing the role that SEI skills play in educational settings, especially schools.
It envisions the following systemic impact:
a) introduction of the HAND in HAND topic in programs for initial and continuous professional development of teachers and other educational staff;
b) introduction of the HAND in HAND topic in curricula and extra-curricular activities for students in the whole vertical of educational system;
c) legislative changes, enabling the full implementation of the whole-school approach;
d) finally, an overall value-change of educational systems in terms of transforming high competitive culture in European schools to more emphatic, social and emotionally, which can be considered an alternative route towards high-student achievement.
Watch the video “HAND in HAND project: It’s time for a change in education”.
Apart from the Network of Education Policy Centers (NEPC), project partners are:
SLOVENIA
Educational Reserach Institute (ERI) – leading partner, www.pei.si
Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (MESS), www.miizs.gov.si/en
SWEDEN
Mittuniversitetet – Mid Sweden University (MIUN), www.miun.se/en
CROATIA
Institute for Social Research in Zagreb (ISRZ), www.idi.hr/en/
GERMANY
German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF)
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
DENMARK
Via University College (with collaboration of The Danish Society for the Promotion of Life Wisdom in Children), www.en.via.dk
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