EDIC+ module: Ethical Competencies for Democratic Citizenship at School and in Families

University of Barcelona

We live in a pluralistic world where different ways of seeing and coping with life coexist. The evolution of society is complex and uncertain and people must face great challenges, confusion and disorientation that do not help them to find their way forward in life. 

Moreover, multiculturalism in our societies, especially the most advanced ones, requires education about how to live together. It is not only about living side by side during a specific stage of life, with individuals of different character, intellectual level, ethnicity and religion. We will have to set the fundamentals of this coexistence during childhood and youth so that these persist into adulthood.

Our proposal for ethical competencies does not only consist of proposing values to teach, but also proposes a series of requirements for the school so that it becomes a place where children and young people learn and develop all personal dimensions and competencies that allow them to assess, evaluate, estimate, accept and built values. Moreover, not only the school, but also the family contributes to the process of human development. 

Module content

The aim of this module is two-fold: 

1. Analyse ethical competences for democratic citizenship that we should transmit from the school and investigate the possible pros and cons of them. 
2. Analyse ethical competences for democratic citizenship that we should transmit from the family and investigate the possible pros and cons of them, taking into account different family backgrounds in today’s society. 

As both areas have their own identity we will treat them independently, unless we find common dimensions and aspects. We expect that students acquire knowledge and strategies so they can promote and cultivate democracy as a way of living, understand participation in collective projects and practice the search for common benefit agreements. These are goals that can only be achieved by creating an atmosphere based on caring relationships among all. To complete this module, the student should be aware of the level of ethical competences in schools and within families and should be able to analyse real life and imaginary situations that could happen.

Programme

This module is part of the EDIC+ partnership(Educacion for Democratic Intercultural Citizenship Education). It's organized during the second semester as an intensive course. Students will attend seminars in order to present and share ideas and discuss readings. Also, students need to complete individual tasks, like analyse the suggested readings, write essays and write a real case study. The module takes place in (date pending). This is a course included in the Master Values Education and Citizenship of the Faculty of Education at the Univestity of Barcelona, taught by Maria Rosa Buxarrais and Francisco Esteban.

The evaluation activities included in this module are:

• Active participation in face-to-face classes (20% of final grade)

• Writing of the proposed reviews (40% of the final grade)

• Analysis of the proposed case in groups (40% of the final mark)

• Schools visits

• Families interviews: content analyse

Contact

Maria Rosa Buxarrais

Francisco Esteban

Elena Noguera