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This article was downloaded by: [Simon Fraser University] On: 15 November 2014, At: 15:35 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Intercultural Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20 "Eurokid": An innovative pedagogical approach to developing intercultural and anti-racist education on the Web Chris Gaine , Camilla Hallgren , Servando Peérez Domiénguez , Joana Salazar Noguera & Gaby Weiner Published online: 01 Jul 2010. To cite this article: Chris Gaine , Camilla Hallgren , Servando Peérez Domiénguez , Joana Salazar Noguera & Gaby Weiner (2003) "Eurokid": An innovative pedagogical approach to developing intercultural and anti-racist education on the Web, Intercultural Education, 14:3, 317-329, DOI: 10.1080/1467598032000117105 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1467598032000117105 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: "Eurokid": An innovative pedagogical approach to developing intercultural and anti-racist education on the Web

This article was downloaded by: [Simon Fraser University]On: 15 November 2014, At: 15:35Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Intercultural EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20

"Eurokid": An innovative pedagogicalapproach to developing interculturaland anti-racist education on the WebChris Gaine , Camilla Ha‐llgren , Servando Peérez Domiénguez ,Joana Salazar Noguera & Gaby WeinerPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Chris Gaine , Camilla Ha‐llgren , Servando Peérez Domiénguez , Joana SalazarNoguera & Gaby Weiner (2003) "Eurokid": An innovative pedagogical approach to developingintercultural and anti-racist education on the Web, Intercultural Education, 14:3, 317-329, DOI:10.1080/1467598032000117105

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1467598032000117105

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: "Eurokid": An innovative pedagogical approach to developing intercultural and anti-racist education on the Web

Intercultural Education, Vol. 14, No. 3, September 2003

“Eurokid”: an innovative pedagogicalapproach to developing intercultural andanti-racist education on the WebCHRIS GAINE, CAMILLA HALLGREN, SERVANDO PEREZDOMINGUEZ, JOANA SALAZAR NOGUERA & GABY WEINER

ABSTRACT Most schools in today’s Europe have a high percentage of immigrant students.This percentage has increased in typical immigration countries such as Switzerland,Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, France and the UK. However, this is also true forcountries such as Sweden or Spain. Aware of this multicultural picture, in this paper wepresent the methodological approach of a European Comenius project, “Eurokid”, based onthe template “Britkid” (see www.britkid.org), which addresses intercultural education andanti-racism. Three countries are involved in the project: the UK, Sweden and Spain. Theproject is an educational and innovative tool and a learning and teaching resource forstudents and teachers in secondary schools. How? Through websites where a group ofadolescents (minorities and majorities) “meet” and “talk” about issues of acceptance,difference, racism, mixed cultures, (multiple) identitie, and integration. Their “talks” in thethree websites—written in each country’s language(s) and in English—as well as thecharacters, are based on original research (via interviews and questionnaires). The project’sobjectives, content, pedagogical approaches and authentic classroom material, created tofacilitate and promote dialogue among minorities and majorities, form the basis of this paper.

Introduction

A recent conference in Sweden, which drew on the routine experiences of minorityethnic pupils and students in Swedish schools, was entitled “Everyday Racism” toshow that such events were regular intrusions into many young people’s lives. Manyconferences in the UK in the past three years have focused upon institutional racism,and the insidious ways in which racist assumptions may be built into everydaypractices. With regard to Spain, its transformation from “a country of emigration”to “a country of immigration” has created both challenges and opportunities forsociety as a whole, and for teenagers in particular. Intolerant, xenophobic and racistattitudes are growing in parallel with the number of (economic) immigrants who tryto find a living in countries such as Spain, Italy or Greece—countries that, until the1980s, were mainly “exporters” of immigrants. Conferences, seminars, articles,books or general enquiries mirror this picture in the three countries. Therefore,

ISSN 1467-5986 print; 1469-8489 online/03/030317-13 2003 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/1467598032000117105

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given this negative, but also challenging picture, we, as educators, are trying to“build” something different, attractive and educational for youngsters, which pro-motes ethnic/cultural understanding and anti-racism among today’s and tomorrow’scitizens.

The project involves researchers from the UK, Sweden and Spain engaged withanti-racist and multicultural/intercultural education, who have the main responsi-bility for researching and writing the materials, though each has a range of schoolcontacts for piloting the material. It is anticipated that a European website willbe available in 2003, together with national websites (www.britkid.org;www.spanishkid.org; www.swedkid.nu; www.eurokid.org).

Papers have been presented about earlier stages of this work at two previousECER conferences (European Conference on Educational Research) in 1998 and1999. In 2001, workshops were presented at the ATEE conference (Association forTeacher Education in Europe) in Stockholm and at the ECER conference in Lille,both with very useful and encouraging feedback. In these conferences, a number oftopics/questions were posed for discussion:

(1) Is characterisation as pedagogy a useful and viable strategy?(2) Is the Web a suitable medium for the teaching of such “contentious” and

“sensitive” issues? What other issues could be explored in this way?(3) How are minority/majority ethnicities to be represented on the websites?(4) Who should be included—largest minorities, most illustrative of issues of

racism or … ?(5) What other information should be included in the websites?(6) How can national identity be dealt with, i.e. what it means to be “Spanish”,

“English/British” or “Swedish”?(7) How can production of the “other” and racial stereotyping be avoided?(8) Given the specific histories and cultures of individual countries, has a Euro-

pean project of this kind much to offer to teachers and school students?(9) Is it possible to incorporate such new forms of pedagogy into teachers’

practice—technically and professionally?(10) What sources of data/information on ethnicity and identity are most valid?(11) What are the main ethical issues of developing an anti-racist website such as

“Britkid” (see www.britkid.org), “Swedkid”, “Spanishkid” or “Eurokid”?(12) “Each website needs to be appropriate to national and cultural imagery and

representation” (notes from “Eurokid” project meeting). What form mightsuch imagery and representation take?

(13) How can such a website be made exciting and attractive to teenagers?(14) How might the “Eurokid” (or “Swedkid”, “Spanishkid”, “Britkid”) project be

evaluated? What could be their criteria for success?

Contextual Background of the Countries Involved

Since the 1980s, Spain has clearly become a country that embraces an increasingnumber of immigrants within its borders. As a result, Spain is no longer a typical

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country of emigration, as it was until then. The tendency has changed.1 In this sense,perhaps it is worth noting that one of the first books dealing with issues of diversitywas published in 1984. The book (translated into Spanish) was compiled by Husen& Opper (1984). There was no response from Spanish society at that time.However, from the 1990s onwards, important innovations and programmes wereintroduced in schools, and now papers, articles, chapters and whole books arepublished, seminars and conferences organised, official monographic works orderedby the central and regional governments, qualifying papers, doctoral dissertationsand also Master’s courses are and continue to be written regarding multi/intercultural education. Educational journals produce special and monographicissues about immigrants, multicultural or intercultural education. New journals,NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and other kinds of organisations/associations dealing with multicultural issues have appeared as well. Press, radio andtelevision, almost every day, speak/write about questions derived from the cultural,ethnic and linguistic diversity of the different areas of the country (see PerezDomınguez & Gaine, 2001, p. 411).

According to the official statistics on foreigners with residence permits (seeAnuario Estadıstico de Extranjerıa 1999) (data of 31 December 2000), Spain washome to 895,720 of such individuals, of whom 361,437 were Europeans, especiallyBritish (73,983) and Germans (60,575); 261,385 were Africans, mainly Moroccans(199,782). In any case, Spain has been a multicultural society since before the1980s. Spain’s diversity derives from those who come to work and/or live in Spain,but also from those Spaniards who maintain their own individual cultures withinSpain. Spain’s internal diversity is characterised by its three co-official languages(Catalan, Basque and Galician—and their respective cultures) along with Spanish,and by the presence of Roma since the beginning of the 15th century (Cowan &Perez Domınguez, 1996; Perez Domınguez, 1999; Santos Rego & PerezDomınguez, 2001).

On 11 January 2000, a new Immigration Law came into force owing to thepressure of this increasing cultural and ethnic diversity within the country. Indeed,the previous Immigration Law from 1985 had become obsolete. This new Lawintroduced a number of improvements for the immigrants and their families withregard to key issues such as education, health and work permits. However, after thegeneral elections of March 2000, the government, probably having in mind theincreasing number of claims stemming from foreigners who wanted their situationin Spain to become legal, reformed the Law and made it, let us say, less permissive.On 26 May 2000, the Home Secretary presented in Parliament the Report forthe reform of the 2000 Immigration Law. In the words of the governmentspokesman, this Report had the intention of “avoiding lack of clarity in thedistinction between legal and illegal immigrants” (see the newspaper El CorreoGallego, 2000a). Nevertheless, despite the many who die in the attempt, immigrantscontinue to enter Spain thanks to the “help” of an organised Mafia that exploitsthem before and after they enter (see El Correo Gallego, 2000b). In fact, on 14 June,with kind but firm words, the Moroccan historian Abdalah Larui, winner of the11th Catalunya International Prize, denounced the lack of a common foreign policy

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in the European Union (EU) countries, and the repercussions of this lack of policyin what affects the relationship between EU countries and Morocco (see thenewspaper El Periodico de Catalunya, 2000). In the meantime, immigrants continueto arrive on the Iberian Peninsula, mainly through the Gibraltar Strait, and nothingindicates that this will stop if north–south differences continue as well (see the dailyEl Paıs, 2001).

As regards the UK, it is probably perceived in much of mainland Europe as anestablished multicultural society. It must certainly seem multicultural to visitors,since perhaps 25% of London’s population are of non-European descent, and thepercentage is higher in the population aged under 25 (Gaine, 2000a). About 45% ofBritain’s visible minorities live in London (more than half of all Britons ofBangladeshi and Caribbean descent, 35% of British Chinese). The term “visibleminorities” is used because skin colour has been a key signifier of difference inBritish politics and culture since economic migration from its ex-colonies began inthe early 1950s. The communities contained in this description are usually taken tobe Indians (the largest group), African-Caribbean, Pakistanis, Chinese,Bangladeshis, Africans, “other Asians” (Vietnamese, Thai, etc.), “black people ofmixed descent” and “other groups” (such as Arabs, Turks, etc.). Despite theimpression London may give, altogether they comprise only about 6% of the totalBritish population.

This excludes, however, longer established minorities such as Travellers (0.1%),Irish (4.5%) and Jews (0.5%), as well as many Poles (dating from the late 1940s)and newer groups of refugees, present in much smaller numbers, from some Africancountries and Eastern Europe (making up at most 0.2% of the population). Incomparison with the groups already mentioned, migration from within the EU is notdemographically significant, perhaps making up 1% of the population. Adding allthese groups together (i.e. visible and “white” minorities) produces a total ethnicminority population of around 11%, a large proportion of whom live and work insouth-east England, thus confounding the idea that Britain as a whole has a highlevel of cultural diversity (these figures are derived from Modood et al., 1997, andthe Commission for Racial Equality, 1998).

Most commentators would agree that Britain has not always been entirelycomfortable with its increasing diversity (e.g. Goulbourne, 1998; van Dijk, 1993). Incultural terms, largely because of minorities’ location in urban areas, and oftenLondon itself, there is a very visible impact in the media, in sport and in music.There has been a series of reports identifying systematic discrimination in all keyaspects of life: health, employment, education, housing, and most recently and verypublicly, in the police force. While undoubtedly systematic, British racism has notalways been conscious and planned, and although only accepted as a reality bygovernment as a result of the enquiry into the failed investigation murder of a blackteenager, the widespread existence of institutional racism has been argued byminorities and researchers for some time.

Researchers commonly describe various overlapping stages in educational re-sponses to diversity, and these need not be rehearsed in detail here. Gaine (2000b)suggests five stages:

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• assimilation, or the immigrant perspective, which focused on conformity andreducing difference (1950s to the 1970s);

• multiculturalism, or the celebrating diversity perspective, which tried to emphasiserespect and mutual understanding (1970s and 1980s);

• anti-racism, focusing on issues of exclusion, inequality and injustice (this began inthe late 1970s, was crushed by government interventions by the late 1980s, andis perhaps resurfacing currently);

• reaction, a resurgence of assimilationist views about Britishness in the curriculum(from about 1982 until the Conservative Party lost power in 1997);

• market performativity, the view that inequalities can be diminished by an explicitand public emphasis on different groups’ comparative results, and schools’ beingheld accountable (post-1997).

There have been some landmark events in this area, one being the Swann Report of1985, which tried to establish a kind of assertive multiculturalism but which wasrapidly overtaken by the developing reaction within the then government (theReport had been established by a previous government). Part of this reactionbecame a second landmark—the Education Reform Act of 1988, which, for the firsttime in Britain, attempted to define the content of the curriculum in considerabledetail. In the context of the period—reaction—the proposed curriculum had much tosay about diversity, even if it said it by silence. A third key landmark is, as alreadymentioned (the police investigation into the murder of the black teenager), theStephen Lawrence enquiry, which produced for the first time in Britain an acknowl-edgement from the centre of government that institutional racism was present in allkey British institutions.

Thus, diversity and its consequences are constantly in the news, and not only inthe educational press. After a period of being marginalized, the issue is nowsupported by materials circulated to all training establishments by the TeacherTraining Agency. Issues of “race” and culture have recently become part of thecitizenship curriculum that has become compulsory in all schools. Publishers havealways issued books in the field, though because of the stages described above, thenumbers published (and purchased) have fluctuated. Specific posts in educationsupporting children or teachers mushroomed in the 1980s, only to be sharplyreduced by 1990. They may be increasing again (see Perez Domınguez & Gaine,2001, pp. 409–411).

The case of Sweden is also an interesting one. Sweden has long been a multiethnicsociety, despite the presumption in the 1960s of “one language, one race and noreligion” (Andrae-Telin & Elgqvist-Saltzman, 1987, p. 4). Often forgotten in today’sdiscussions are the number of Swedish-born minorities—Sami (Laplanders),Finnish Swedes, Roma and Jews—each of which has made significant contributionsto Swedish society and culture over the centuries (Proposition 1998/99, p. 143).Today, of Sweden’s nine million inhabitants, approximately 10% (over 900,000)were born abroad. Of these, 40% have lived in Sweden for 20 years or more. Anadditional 700,000 have at least one parent from abroad. (Proposition 1997/98). It

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is estimated that, by the end of 2010, every third child born in Sweden will have atleast one parent with a foreign background.

During the 1980s, there were a number of anti-racist campaigns at both thecentral and local levels, the main target of which were schools and young people,and in 1992 a number of government agencies were jointly given the task of tryingto influence young people’s perspectives on, and behaviour towards, immigration,immigrants and ethnic minority groups. They came to the conclusion that it isdifficult to change perspectives by information alone—an appeal to the emotions isalso important. This point has been taken up, at least partially, in recent govern-mental emphasis on values (vardegrund) among schools students (viz. comments ofthe Schools Minister), but so far this work is only at the stage of fact-gathering andmapping.

At the present time, combating racism and xenophobia is a “burning” issue formany Swedish politicians and educationists. Policy documents, conferences andmedia coverage proliferate, each demanding a stronger engagement with democracy,more time to “talk about how we are acting towards each other” (Wanersson, 1999),and more commitment from schools in consolidating democracy and fightingracism.

Likewise, various regulatory frameworks for schools and the curriculum requirethat schools incorporate issues of democracy, respect, tolerance and equality in theirwork, but with few suggestions about how this may be achieved. Only a quarter ofteachers claim to have sufficient skills and knowledge to deal with pupils comingfrom different ethnic backgrounds and cultures (Skolverket, 1998).

We are aware of the fateful date of 11 September, so we claim that it is of utmostimportance that all cultures really know each other and that racism in all its formsis better understood and challenged by young people. Beginning with respect forindividual differences, certainly valuing the cultural, religious and linguistic ones,and not forgetting the common ground provided by similarities that also exist, we allhave to learn how to build bridges of understanding. The “Eurokid” project, whichnow we describe in more detail, constitutes an attempt to facilitate the creation ofsuch bridges.

Theme and Objectives of “Eurokid”

The European project “Eurokid” addresses intercultural and anti-racist issues ineducation in general by the collaborative development of websites for classroom usefollowing the template available from the UK-based “Britkid” (http://www.britkid.org) but using wider European contexts such as Spain and Sweden.

“Britkid” is a website designed for young teenagers to explore and consideraspects of racism and xenophobia. It has been successful in the UK, with manythousands of young people using it. The site has received positive feedback fromteachers and young users themselves. It has also been used in other Europeancountries, partly to explore the issues with young people in the medium of English,and partly as an English teaching medium itself. The core logic of the site involvesa group of nine characters, young teenagers who, in the course of conversations and

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observations in different locations around their imaginary town, explore and re-hearse various facets of racism and of growing up in an ethnically diverse society.Students/users enter the website by choosing a character, each of whom representsan aspect of Britain’s ethnic diversity. The student/user then has the option of goingto their character’s home and reading something of their home life and family.

Following the template “Britkid”, the entire focus of the European project“Eurokid” is to develop innovative pedagogical approaches at the classroom level,first by promoting mutual understanding among people from different socio-culturaland linguistic backgrounds, and secondly producing websites which address issuesof difference, conflict and diversity within the partner countries, and also commonissues such as the Roma, the position of refugees, persisting anti-Semitism, linguisticdifferences, and the growth of non-Christian religious minorities.

Apart from classroom materials, training materials for teachers have been devel-oped. As well as requiring cooperation and collaboration in their construction, theproject is explicitly designed to facilitate and promote intercultural dialogue usingthe Web to construct transnational, interactive and engaging resources. Therefore,the aim of “Eurokid” is to produce high-quality intercultural learning and teachingmaterials, with teacher support, freely accessible to schools on the Internet.

Methodological Approaches

It is known that throughout Europe there is much ignorance about minorities amongyoung people, fuelled by misinformation, myth and stereotypical and racist ideas.Consequently, in relation to their own society, each of the project partners (Spain,the UK and Sweden) has collated existing research and other published accounts ofminority religious and cultural values, histories, perspectives and experiences ofinequality, as well as majority reactions to and expectations of them. These areintegrated with the researchers’ existing knowledge and experience in the field ofintercultural and anti-racist education to produce characters (11 in the case ofSweden) who “explore” the key issues on the country’s website. In the case ofSweden, the characters are very closely based on interviewees’ actual words andexperiences. In the UK, they were generated more from the key researchers’experiences in anti-racist work and familiarity with the field. Spain’s approach to thewriting is somewhere between that of Sweden and the UK. The resulting text hasbeen trialled in secondary schools, and also shown to different informants (foreignand native adults, as well as colleagues), and modified according to their responses.

The schools involved in the trialling of the materials are not noted for having highproportions of minorities: they are typical of the targeting audience of websites, andtheir main involvement is to advise and try them out.

The content areas included in the questionnaires and interviews with minorityethnic young people were:

• describe yourself, your life, your experiences• family, brothers and sisters, grandparents …• other important adults

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• housing• language• religion• food• music• spare time, weekends• friends• school• future• dreams• hassles–prejudice–racism

The websites explicitly deal with people who have been disadvantaged and marginal-ized by racism. The websites have been developed as learning and teaching materialswhich actively counter stereotypes and inaccurate generalisations about girls andwomen, and using transnational perspectives in doing so. Specific topics relating togender equality are raised on the websites, and, where possible, girls and women areportrayed as independent and self-reliant.

As has been mentioned before, the aims of the activities include the provision ofin-depth knowledge to young people about the realities of the lives of minorities, toexplode myths about them, to show the effects of the “fortress” and exclusionarylegislation of national and EU governments, and the characteristics and incidence ofracism. As an example of these aims, below is an extract from a created character onthe Spanish website (Fig. 1):

Hi! My name is Lucıa. I like my name (I hope you like it too!). Did youknow that it means “the light”? It’s funny because my skin is olive and myhair completely black! My friends (I’ll introduce them to you later) call meLuci.

This character, Lucıa, like her other eight virtual friends, first introduces herself.Next, one of her relatives does the same thing, followed by Lucıa’s reflections on herreligion, food, hassles and peer group. Here is how she describes her “hassles”.

My hassles …

I consider myself quite lucky in a way. I have lots of friends (girls andboys), and some of them are payos.2 I have never been attacked, or evencalled names. But, I must admit that I am not what you could call a typicalRoma. Mine is not a rich family, but we don’t live badly and, although myparents try to convince me to stop studying, they won’t stop me either if Idecide to carry on. I live in a flat not in a camp, and I’m glad—I like havingpiped water. My neighbours are payos and we have no problems with eachother, we respect each other.

So, my hassles are about my future, about my dreams, and also about thepossible future for my people, for my community. For me, I know that asa girl and a Roma maybe some payos don’t see me as having much of afuture, but if I get to university maybe some will start to see me as

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FIG. 1.

competition. But getting to university could make things difficult with myown community. Lots of them will try very hard to make me change mymind because they are afraid that I’ll become a payo, they think that

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studying will make me forget our culture. I know some Roma men andwomen have been to university in the south, but very few. They wanted todo it, but were then kind of seen as outsiders. My community is stillfrightened of what they think is the bad influence of our payo friends.

There are some things about being Roma that I know I won’t change,like I want to be a virgin when I get married. But then I would like to carryon working after getting married, and my husband has to understand thatwhether he’s payo or Roma.

I am more worried about my people. I think they are more on the outsideof everything than any other group in Spain. Some of them really suffer.Some payos say it’s the Roma’s own fault, saying we don’t want tointegrate. I can’t see what’s wrong with us having our own way of doingthings (though I reckon me and my family are pretty integrated any-way … ). But, well, how much do people really know about Roma? Theyjust seem to believe bad things. If we knew more about each other we couldjust respect each other and accept that we’re different. My friends say thatI’m very idealistic, my teachers say I believe in Utopia (whatever that is)and my parents say I am a dreamer. Well, maybe I could combine all thisand put my small piece of sand towards building a better society.

Yeah, I know—dreaming again …

We do not avoid religious and cultural controversies; in fact, they are present in thedialogues. Furthermore, the themes covered in the arguments and conversationsinvolve, for example, conflict and dissent because of skin colour, harassment,relationships, the words and jokes the characters like and do not like, publicattitudes about race myths, racism in sport, crime, discrimination, religion, cultureand language, religious and cultural difference, the experience of refugees and so on.We also cover how it is possible to cooperate, what can be learned from each other,the multiple identities as a result of marriages of people from different ethnic groups,etc.

These discussions may end with some kind of question where students engagewith the material to give answers that may be factual, moral or a matter of opinion.There are also factual end quizzes about characters’ home lives, religious buildingsand general knowledge on issues of racism and multiculturalism. Material can beconsulted on an individual or small group basis. Besides the arguments and conver-sations, there are factual pages where students can find further information.

The target age of the materials is young teenagers, from about 12 to 16 years ofage. The intention of “Eurokid” is that young citizens in the three partner countrieshave easy access to educationally sound, authoritative, interactive learning materialsthat help them engage with issues of racism, xenophobia and difference. This isequally true for those elsewhere in Europe, who can read Spanish, English orSwedish. It is worth noting that research into users of “Britkid” has shown consider-able use in schools outside the UK, from social work training in Milan to Englishteaching in Helsinki. It is also noteworthy that, although the original audience wasyoung white people, many users from minority ethnic groups find a source of

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strength and support in the site, and have responded very positively, as in thefollowing:

Hi i am a young teenager (I am 14) The website was recommended to meand i thought it was an amazing website. I have learnt so much. I am a jewand do not do that many religious things but the website showed you somany different points of views in the game. I wanted to e-mail you to tellyou that there is finally a site with no sex in and no pop stars which is a verygood influence to young teenagers around the world. Thankyou for pro-ducing such a marvellous website.

joanne (e-mail sent to “britkid”)

Evaluations in the UK show an impact upon the curriculum, which could well bematched by “Eurokid” producing school resources which enable teachers to feelmore confident in tackling difficult topics. It may be useable in various forms asdrama and language work, social studies/humanities subject areas and citizenship,among others.

As already indicated, by using the websites as a springboard, there is scope inschools for individual, group and whole-class work, first-hand contact with othercountries, aid drama, factual and creative writing, involving various parts of thecurriculum. As has been mentioned before, one of the aims of “Eurokid” is toprovide a resource for teachers and introduction for student teachers to interculturaland anti-racist education as well as Internet use. As primarily a curriculum develop-ment project, the project aims to increase teacher and institutional awareness andconfidence in raising issues of intercultural and anti-racist education in ways whichare educationally positive.

Conclusions

Attitudinal change is hard to measure, let alone predict. Yet we are confident thatthe Spanish and Swedish sites will be as successful as the existing British site inhaving a significant effect on mutual understanding and dialogue. They should alsohave an effect on young people’s confidence to discuss these issues from a moreinformed perspective.

The analysis of “Britkid’s” use also demonstrates that the websites may also beseen as a valuable language teaching material, and an information technologypackage, which happens also to have an important citizenship message.

This paper has tried to offer a general view of the “Eurokid” project, which webelieve might offer a valuable pedagogical strategy for intercultural and anti-racistteaching and also to open the students’ minds to a critical social issue. We know thatwe have complex aims, but we believe that there should be a place in the schools forteaching intercultural and anti-racist values, and that the “Eurokid” project canmake a significant contribution.

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328 C. Gaine et al.

Address for correspondence: Dr Chris Gaine, University College Chichester, College Lane,Chichester, Sussex PO19 6PE, UK; e-mail: [email protected]

Notes

1. As Gonzalo and Villanueva (1996, p. 110) have pointed out, the closure of North Americanborders also meant an influx of Philippine and Latin American people to Spain; LatinAmericans were forced to leave by the military dictatorships, especially in Argentina, Chile andUruguay. Until 1972, however, immigrants were mainly single men, and it was not until 1986that family groups began to arrive in Spain (Caritas Espanola, 1987; Losada, 1988).

2. Payos is the word used by Roma people to refer to the mainstream Spanish population.

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