Preparing learners for the labour market and shaping them as active democratic citizens by integrating the RFCDC into vocational education and training The Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) sets out 20 competences that learners need to develop to live and participate as active citizens in democratic societies. The competences are organised into values, attitudes, skills and knowledge and critical understanding. Vocational education and training (VET) is crucial to the economic development and growth of modern nations because it develops the skilled workforce that is needed to maintain the efficiency and competitiveness of public and private enterprises. However, VET is not exclusively about preparing learners for the labour market. At an education level, VET also prepares learners for life to act as democratic citizens. This publication explores how the RFCDC can be used in VET and offers suggestions for implementing the RFCDC in an integrated approach.

A journey towards a democratic teacher ethos and a democratic culture in schools Being a “democratic teacher” requires more than just being good at one’s subject. Among other things, it requires the ability to listen to learners, colleagues and parents and openness to the cultural affiliations and practices they bring to the educational process, empathy and a sense of responsibility for the well-being and empowerment of all learners. The teacher self-reflection tool aims to support teachers and other educators to develop their own competences relating to democratic culture and a “democratic professional ethos”, which builds on the values of democracy, human rights and intercultural dialogue. It offers guidance throughout this development process and on working with the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC). The tool can be used as a means of getting acquainted with the RFCDC, but it can also be used as a companion to self-reflection on teaching and democratic competences.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of international pedagogical approaches, research, innovation experiences, and best practices in bilingual and second language education to enhance bilingual teacher education programs. The book clearly outlines the need for an interdisciplinary and interconnected approach to effecting successful bilingual teacher education programs. Featuring practical examples from a wide range of geographic contexts throughout, the volume comprises diverse pedagogical approaches to bilingual and second language teacher education, bilingual and plurilingual education, storytelling, digital storytelling and digital technology, and content and language integrated learning (CLIL), including methodological strategies in bilingual education as well as quality standards in CLIL syllabus design assessment. The book concludes by reflecting on the lessons learned from research, and identifies future directions for bilingual education programs and bilingual teacher education. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars in bilingual and second language education, bilingual teacher education, CLIL, as well as educators and stakeholders in bilingual, CLIL, and English teacher education degree programs.

A tool for developing intercultural competence and facilitating the emergence of intercultural citizenship in those who use it. In the contemporary world, encounters with people from other cultural backgrounds have become part of our everyday lives. These intercultural encounters may be used as an opportunity to learn about other cultures, to develop our capacities for effective and respectful communication, to think about our own cultural affiliations and to reflect on ways in which we might take action for the common good. The Autobiography of intercultural encounters (AIE) is an educational resource that can be used by learners to achieve all of these outcomes. It supports learners in thinking about and learning from intercultural encounters that they have experienced either face to face, through visual media (such as television, films, magazines) or through the internet. Revised and updated editions of the various versions of the AIE that have been developed can be found in three separate volumes which accompany the present volume. The present volume contains two accompanying papers, “Context, concepts and theories” and “Concepts for discussion”. The former discusses the policy context and conceptual and theoretical issues relating to intercultural encounters and is intended for readers who wish to understand the ideas that underlie the design of the AIE. The latter provides less technical discussions of key concepts related to culture, identity and intercultural encounters and can be used with learners in upper secondary education or the early years of higher education and in non-formal and informal education.

An International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL) Honour Book for 2023 This book is a comprehensive and thorough introduction to children's and young adult literature in English language education. Reading is promoted as central to language education in order to experience perspectives from around the world, and the book demonstrates the many opportunities for teaching with compelling story, encouraging an active and engaged community of second language readers through challenging picturebooks, motivating graphic novels, dynamic plays, enchanting verse novels and compelling young adult fiction. Using many examples of literary texts that are well suited to the primary or secondary classroom, the book focuses on the advantages of deep reading and the vital importance of in-depth learning. In-depth learning is an approach that involves the students as motivated participants, working collaboratively and with empathy while preparing for and confronting the challenges of the 21st century. Illustrating the approach with a Deep Reading Framework based in research and theory, Janice Bland guides the reader to discover and learn how to make use of literary texts in a way that challenges students to become involved in interculturality, creativity and critical literacy. Throughout the book the emphasis is on an approach that puts the reader and language learner in the centre – not a study of literature but a study of how readers learn through compelling story.

Underscoring the complex relationship between civic engagement and education at all stages of life, this innovative Handbook identifies the contemporary challenges and best approaches and practices to encourage civic engagement within education.

The work of the Council of Europe in plurilingual and intercultural education is highly influential in Europe and beyond and has been so for many years. The Common European Framework of Reference and its Companion Volume, and related instruments, provide ways in which to implement policies and a broader vision of providing quality and equity in education across the curriculum, a vision which incorporates the core values of the Council of Europe and which educates children and young people to be plurilingual, intercultural and democratic citizens. This book presents this educational vision, demonstrates how it can be realised through the application of Council of Europe instruments in practice, and does so in a way which is easily and quickly accessible to teachers of all subjects and in all educational institutions, as well as to other educationists, including policymakers.

This revised edition of Michael Byram’s classic 1997 book updates the text in light of both recent research and critiques and commentaries on the 1st edition. Beginning from the premise that foreign and second language teaching should prepare learners to use a language with fluency and accuracy, and also to speak with people who have different cultural identities, social values and behaviours, the book is an invaluable guide for teachers and curriculum developers, taking them from a definition of Intercultural Communicative Competence through planning for teaching to assessment. This edition refines the definitions of the five ‘savoirs’ of intercultural competence, and includes new sections on issues such as moral relativism and human rights, mediation, intercultural citizenship and teachers’ ethical responsibilities.

Centred around a contemporary conception of Bildung, this book effectively demonstrates how the aims of cross- and transcurricular teaching can be reconciled, resulting in a didactic framework for teaching and learning in secondary schools that can be applied internationally. Chapters present a nuanced and unified approach to fusing theory and practice by offering accounts of some of the most promising teaching methods from leading scholars in the field of curriculum research. These methods include dialogic teaching or movement integration, transversal competences like digital or entrepreneurial thinking, and topics that call for crosscurricular approaches, like sustainability or citizenship. Addressing diverse worries and criticisms of crosscurricular teaching, the book includes international viewpoints and trends such sustainability, citizenship, and student motivation to present a comprehensive and systematic scholarly treatment of crosscurricular didactics within the classroom. It further addresses important challenges that have been widely ignored, like how to evaluate crosscurricular work. Ultimately, this volume makes a highly novel contribution to the field of crosscurricular didactics, and will be of interest to researchers, scholars, academics in the fields of secondary education teaching and learning, educational science, and curriculum design. Those interested more broadly in the theory of education will also find the volume of use.

Whether formally incorporated into curriculum and teacher training or informally integrated in contexts such as state or NGO initiatives dealing with resolving social, ethnic, and religious conflicts, peace education is increasingly recognized as a critical component in addressing violence in contemporary plural societies. Peace education can constructively undertake a reframing of historical narratives while inspiring practical community activities. An important, but insufficiently studied and theorized aspect of peace education is the role of religion. The challenge to peace education in today’s globalized, diverse, mobile, and religiously pluralistic world is to be able to take both complex global and distinctive local situations into account. The contributions to this integrative collection of essays provide exactly these local and global perspectives on the state of peace education and its relationship to religion across pedagogy and curriculum, state policies, and activism within societies on the front lines of resolving internal conflicts, whether historical or recent, that often reflect aspects of religious identities.