Nova Doba
Nova Doba is the legal successor of the Regional Association of Teachers of History and Social Studies "Doba". The new organisation took all obligations and responsibilities of Association "Doba" and continues all directions of its activities. The centre of Nova Doba remains in Lviv. Up till now there are 19 local branches of Nova Doba. The aim is to create more possibilities for the members from different regions of Ukraine to develop various activities and raise the organisation's prestige.
EUROCLIO
Since the very beginning, EUSTORY has been in close contact with EUROCLIO, the European Standing Conference of History Teachers' Associations situated in The Hague, Netherlands, and supporting history education throughout Europe. The fruitful and regular co-operation has been very helpful to spread the idea of EUSTORY and win new members.
"We" and "The Others"
Ethnic minorities in the national history of the Ukraine
History in the contemporary political situation in Ukraine is often used as a manipulation object. Right and left-winged politicians advocate increasing the amount of national history in the curriculum, the change in national narrative represented in school history in such a way that the victimized image of the nation, heroic epochs, dominant ethnic communities and religious denominations are given prominent emphasis.
On the social level, Ukraine is home to over 130 nationalities, in particular, the eastern region of Ukraine is populated by 124 nations, nationalities and national minorities. However, there have been tendencies of social and cultural destruction leading to the denial of the other, intolerance to differences, manifestations of racism and xenophobia. There is also a tendency of disintegration of community as a single socio-cultural organism on the basis of ethno-national, ethno-religious and subcultural features. These tendencies are dangerous for the stability of the development of the Ukrainian society.
Recent survey conducted by the Association ‘Nova Doba’ in partnership with the Fund of Democratic Initiatives indicates that students’ level of knowledge and skills for living together, co-existence in modern democratic society is not adequate to the needs of the multicultural society. Young people who make up the most active part of the society often tend to form a negative impression of the growing social and cultural differences, experience a negative adaptation to these differences by denying them, by the identification of themselves and their groups by opposing “our people” to strangers. Such self-identification is dangerous because it is directed at a narrow group and it forms a negative perception of other cultures and religions, other ethnic and racial groups.
In such a problematic situation it is important to form identity and self-awareness of civic type in a qualitative way. School students should be free from stereotypes of discrimination and xenophobia towards other social and cultural groups, be told about admissibility of alternative opinions and language of self-expression, about tolerance to others as a norm of social behavior, about the principle of personal autonomy and fundamentals of civic solidarity.
These general problems can be broken down into specific problems that immediately concern young people and the contemporary school.
The monitoring of school textbooks organized by the Ukrainian National Memory Institute concluded that the modern history textbooks do not present the variant of the collective identity which would satisfy the needs of internal consolidation of the Ukrainian society and correspond to the modern challenges. Existing majority of history textbooks stress ethnocentric vision of history leaving aside the principles of multiethnicity, multiculturalness and multireligiousness – the priorities of modern school didactics in open societies; reflect Ukrainian society’s unity – ethnic, linguistic and religious entity. This heterogeneous variant of historic memory presented in modern history textbooks causes controversy between personal/family history memory and official type of collective memory.
The target groups and final beneficiaries of the action include:
• Teachers of history and civic education ;
• History textbook authors, specialists in methods, universities lectures; history researchers;
• Students of pedagogical universities in their 4th and 5th year and young teachers;
• Secondary school pupils involved in all project activities;
• Parents, representatives of local communities as consultants and direct participants;
• Journalists from national and regional mass-media;
In view of the above problems before the targeted beneficiaries, the action will seek to provide suitable solutions relevant to the existing circumstances and interests of the project stakeholders. The new approach to history teaching that will be developed in the course of the project will:
• Educate students to respect basic human rights, tolerance combating against racism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination;
• Introduce innovative European approaches and methodology of multicultural education into the educational process.
• Develop a tolerant public opinion in local communities to promote tolerant mutual understanding of any kind of differences in mass –media.
The process of research, preservation and teaching of history serve a crucial role in the development of public opinion and civic culture. In fact, history is often the tool for political manipulations, serves as environment where the contemporary xenophobic initiatives are born, where human rights are violated. Accordingly, the implementation of the action will support the overall strengthening of the role of civil society in promoting human rights and democratic reforms, will promote the peaceful conciliation.
The specific objective of the action is in line with the EU Commission’s aim to support educational initiatives against racism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination, to promote ethnic tolerance and mutual understanding through history education in Ukraine.
The main goal of the project is to facilitate a public discussion on reconsidering the role of history in the post-communist society, and to identify new opportunities for building a multicultural image of the Ukrainian society based on the European democratic approach to education. In particular:
• To initiate a wide public discussion on the role of history teaching in preventing xenophobia, discrimination on the ethnic basis and violation of human rights.
• To replace a traditional ethnocentric approach with new multicultural and multi-aspect approaches to the development of history education, both its content and its methods of teaching in school curricula and textbooks.
• To introduce innovative models of teaching and developing an open-minded education focused on the multicultural approach used in the EU states to the teachers at their in-service and pre-service stage.
• To promote the practice of engaging young people (school and university students) into various activities in local communities that will assist in developing their tolerance and respect to social differences, as well as their civil responsibility.
The project is planned to implement in seven the most multicultural oblasts of different regions of Ukraine (Autonomy Republic of Crimea, Chernivtsi, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odessa, Uzhgorod) Its duration is 24 months. The objectives of the project will be achieved in several steps and events in the course of the action.
1. Holding Round Table entitled ‘History of Local Minorities in the History of Ukraine’ to discuss how the history of national minorities should be reflected in the general course of Ukrainian history for secondary schools and universities.
2. Information campaign in mass-media ‘We and Others in History. Overcoming the Language of Hostility’ that will put an emphasis on a tolerant treatment of representatives of other nationalities in Ukraine, understanding of their problems, respect to their history, culture and traditions of national minorities.
3. Contest of Methodological materials and Essays for young history teachers and students “Multiperspective History” in order to motivate to acquire new methodology of teaching history of national minorities in school.
4. Development of school textbook Multicultural History (printed, СD and online variants), the textbook on the role and place of national minorities in Ukraine.
5. Holding summer school of tolerance for university students and young teachers where they will be trained to practically implement issues of human rights, tolerance, multiculturalness and multiple approaches in the teaching of history. The summer school will also result in a group of young trainers to carry out multiple workshops for young people.
6. Contest of history projects for pupils ‘Inside the Culture. History of National Minorities in My Community’ that will stimulate youth research of the history of national minorities at the local level, and will involve members of local communities, local authorities, mass-media into this process.
7. Training of trainers. In the course of three training seminars they will train at least 75 trainers to hold follow-up workshops for Ukrainian educators in project regions on the developed materials and methodology of textbook Multicultural History.
8. Series of local seminars for teachers and students. Prepared trainers on the dissemination stage will hold seminars in different regions of Ukraine on the base of oblast in-service teacher training institutes on the voluntary base.
9. Online Program that will support training teachers in the framework of series of local seminars in methodological approaches of multicultural education.
10. Final Symposium will provide a podium for a wide public presentation of the project results and dissemination of its results for the educators from all regions of Ukraine and national mass media.
The results which the proposed action estimates to achieve are as follows:
• 5000 copies of textbooks and no less than 2000 СDs entitled Multicultural History will be prepared and published;
• At least 75 trainers from the project regions and at least 1500 teachers of Ukraine will be trained in the issues of tolerance education through history;
• At least 50 students of pedagogical Universities and young teachers from project regions will be trained on multicultural issues and practice of teaching tolerance and active citizens’ competences;
• At least 300 students and young teachers will be involved into activities of teaching multiculturalness;
• At least 400 pupils’ teams (5000 pupils) will take part in the contest “Inside the Culture. National Minorities in My Local Community”;
• At least 1000 educators from different regions of Ukraine will use the developed textbook materials in the classrooms for at least 20 000 of pupils every year.
In view of similar projects implemented by Association ‘Nova Doba’ over the recent years in the field of tolerance education through history, it has developed the background experience required to implement the proposed action. Together with the partners, ‘Nova Doba’ has experience of working with topics of xenophobia and racism, providing methodological support of history teaching in school, organizing teacher trainings, holding contests on the national level; development and dissemination of teaching materials in history for school. As the result of the past activities, our organization has access to the Council of Europe documents on the European approaches to multicultural education, contacts with European specialists in multicultural education, partnership with in-service teacher training institutes, and experience of working in partnerships with other organizations.
To achieve the above mentioned objectives and to implement the planned steps of the project, ‘Nova Doba’ will work in close cooperation with official partners and other stakeholders of the action.
The main official partners of ‘Nova Doba’ in the project is EUROCLIO, the European Association of History Educators, and EUSTORY. They expect to involve experts from EUROCLIO into the project, and to use their experience in the course of practical implementation of the developed materials into the teaching practice, they expect to disseminate the results of the project in the EUROCLIO publications. Furthermore, they hope to benefit from the EUSTORY experience in implementing events for young people, like Summer school for young teachers, Contest of history projects in local communities. Also, winners of the contest will get an opportunity to participate in the international EUSTORY academies.
