Dialogue, Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution Methods for Adult Learners

DiA was a completed cross-sectoral project at the intersection of the key competences of lifelong learning, both in its methodology and in its partnership. By exploring diverse approaches to peace education — including peacebuilding, active citizenship, structured dialogue, conflict resolution and social inclusion — the project contributed to the development of educational methods that teach new skills and lead to social innovation.

Partnership

The project partners included Comparative Research Network (CRN) (Germany) and the Ukrainian Network of Adult Education and Development of Innovation (UNAEDI), together with other organisations in the DiA consortium. All consortium partners were actively engaged in teaching and training.

Policy context

The project built on the main patterns of EU peacebuilding practice pursued through the Instrument for Stability (IfS). This instrument was conceived as the European Commission’s response to the demand for greater EU involvement in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, following the notion of increased governance.

The governance approach was underlined by empowering local actors and citizens to participate in policymaking by improving adult civic education, as reflected in the Europe 2020 strategy and in the Erasmus+ objective of strengthening civic education for adults.

Target groups

The project targeted trainers, teachers and learners in all education sectors, as well as staff and learners within the partnership, stakeholders and associated partners.

Indirect target groups included the communities with which the partners usually work: adult learners and educators, refugees and migrants, refugee women, socially excluded children and young people, internally displaced persons (IDPs), youth leaders, students, women, NGOs, journalists, local authorities, relevant ministries and agencies.

Overall aim

The overall aim of DiA was to identify the main areas in which peace education can help adult education institutions mitigate conflicts, support community building and foster mutual understanding and social dialogue — by turning citizens into bridge-builders in their communities — and to gather and discuss smart practices and methods reflecting each of these areas. Implementation led to five main results.

Results

Result 1. Elaboration of at least 80 smart-practice evaluations of peace education methods in different sectors (youth, schools, adult education), based on a commonly approved evaluation grid.

Result 2. Organisation of two impact trainings. During the trainings the collected methods were discussed, their transferability was tested, and the methods were implemented outside the project.

Result 3. The smart-practice evaluations and the two trainings led to the identification of a large number of practices, gathered and presented in an interactive map of European peacebuilders, functioning as a database and methods toolkit.

Result 4. A consortium of partners actively engaged in teaching and training, enabling cross-sector exchange and the transfer of methods into everyday educational practice.

Result 5. A European eBook on peace education for adults. The eBook was the main dissemination product of the project. It summarised the 50 most relevant smart methods, recommendations and inputs.

Impact trainings

DiA implemented two joint short innovative co-creation impact trainings. Co-creation typically involves hands-on activities in which a group of peers expresses experiences and explores potential solutions in a tangible way. Collaborating in this way provoked discussion and created valuable insights.

Impact trainings are a way to improve quickly the methodology of educators in a specific group or topic. The aim of these four-day programmes was to improve teaching rapidly in a very specific area. Each training was developed on the basis of the participants’ normal way of working and added improvements to it. The project did not strive for large-scale change, but for important improvements in overall teaching, grounded in the knowledge and experience of the participants.

Legacy

Through its open-access collection of practices, the eBook and the digital map of European peacebuilders, DiA contributed to more equal access to knowledge. It offered a participatory learning approach that allowed cross-cutting skills and competences from different sectors to be combined.