Erwerb interkultureller Kompetenzen zur Steigerung der beruflichen Chancen auf dem europäischen Arbeitsmarkt

The project should support the participating students in acquiring intercultural and digital skills, improve their personal development and engagement as active European citizens and their employa...

The project should support the participating students in acquiring intercultural and digital skills, improve their personal development and engagement as active European citizens and their employability on the European labor market. Working in binational groups should promote the development of key professional skills, such as the ability to be flexible and change perspective. By living with host families, which enabled them to participate in everyday life in the other country, our students were to develop an awareness of cultural and structural differences and strengthen their ability to tolerate and empathize. We wanted the students to have authentic experiences with young people of the same age. It was also important to us to show them opportunities for international networking and to enable them to develop a sense of citizenship in Europe and a European identity through the project. Another aim of the project was to promote the use of English in everyday situations as well as in work phases and presentations.

During our project, two meetings took place in which the partner schools visited each other and the pupils were accommodated in host families. The following activities took place in preparation for the meetings and during the stays abroad:Workshop on stereotypes, differences and similarities, city rally, workshop comparing the two countries' school systems and discovering Franco-German partnerships, visit to a local market with interviews of the market exhibitors regarding their vocational training, sports activities; group work on exhibition: market of jobs, gallery walk, workshop at the Lehmbruck Museum, city visit to Münster with guided tour of the city and visit to the Friedenssaal. Guided tour of the Duisburg Inland Navigation Museum, interviews to evaluate the project. The results of all workshops and group work were presented in plenary sessions and also presented in the participating pupils' classes after the meeting.

Concrete outputs were created in the form of posters, photos and videos, which can be viewed on the European dissemination platform E+ PRP. The posters were displayed in the school. The activities were published as a story on the school's Instagram page. The intended acquisition of intercultural skills as a result of the project can also be seen in the lively exchange between the participants, their private activities with each other and their activity via social media, although these can only be measured to a limited extent due to the rather private mode. An indicator of this is also the evaluation carried out, in which the pupils emphasized the intercultural rapprochement and social contact as a central project result. The desire for more frequent opportunities for exchanges of this kind was expressed in many cases and it was also confirmed that the idea of working in another European country had become more concrete. The acquisition of intercultural skills is a continuous and ongoing process that thrives on regular exchange and arises through personal contact. A concrete output is difficult to measure.