Education to tackle polarisation and enhance democracy

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Draft Agenda

10:00 – 10:05 Welcome and introductory speech by Ms Tatjana Babrauskiene, EESC member - NAT Section 

10:05 – 10:30 State of the art of polarisation in Europe, drivers of the process and potential educational replies for social change.

• Maarten Van Alstein, Researcher at Flemish Peace Institute - Polarisation and education: challenge and opportunity? 
• Erika Stael von Holstein, Chief Executive of Re-Imagine Europa (RIE) - Depolarizing Minds: The Power of Education in Cultivating Emotional Intelligence and Democratic Dialogue 
• Dominic Richardson, Director of Learning for Well-being Institute - Supporting school systems to address causes of polarisation.

10:30 – 11:15 Working groups with participants: How can we reduce polarisation in education and in our societies with the support of an intergenerational perspective for healthy democracy? 

11:15 – 11:30 Plenary sharing and agreement on the 4 policy recommendations

Structure of working groups with participants

Participants will be asked to discuss 4 main topics related to education tackling polarisation following an intergenerational and lifelong learning  perspective.  

The shape of the working groups will be the Work Cafè format, meaning every participant will join every table to provide their own contribution to each of the topics, changing every 10 minutes. 

The four topics are the following: 

1. How to change classrooms in terms of climate, activities, environments, etc. to support democratic dialogue rather than polarised thinking (school practices) 
2. How to change narratives that drive to polarised thinking in the educational formal setting (schools staff together with school stakeholders) 
3. How to change the educational system to allow education tackling polarisation (political level) 
4. How to change narratives in the community to decrease polarisation and enhance democratic dialogues ( non- formal and informal educational settings)  

Participants will be motivated to reply and then provide contributions starting from a statement formulated like this: “To avoid this…what we need to change ….” 

The outcomes of the discussion on the 4 topics will define 4  recommendations to school practices, school staff, policy makers, stakeholders where all the participants would agree on overcoming polarisation among themselves. 

Concept Note

"What nutrition … [is] to physiological life, education is to social life. This education consists primarily in transmission through communication. Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession." This quote is taken from Democracy and Education by John Dewey. 

Dewey stressed the intrinsic connection between education and society, where the participation of every member of society is key for a healthy democracy.  

We are (re)entering a period of high polarisation. Polarisation is a risk to the sustainability of democracy in Europe and in the world generally. Education systems cannot avoid tackling this issue. They must ask themselves how they can dismantle polarised thinking by putting in place solutions at all levels of education (from children to adults) and in all settings (formal, non-formal and informal).  

Education plays a critical role in preparing members of society to be active and responsible citizens. The very idea of a ‘shared experience’ is undermined by our increasingly polarised society because we can no longer agree on basic truths. 

Understanding polarisation, its dynamics and its impact on society is the first step in allowing education to plan its responses in terms of preparing future citizens. 

The workshop aims to investigate and start to collectively brainstorm potential answers by educational sectors to polarisation. The intergenerational aspect is the perspective through which this link (education and polarisation) will be discussed during this workshop.