Abstract of the project

The historical, social and cultural connections between Spain and Sardinia has favoured our contact and wish to experiment and verify such affinities in European dimension taking advantage of the Comenius Regio project.
The interwoven and peculiar themes in different educational and working contexts are related to social relationships, correlation between cultures, educational and teaching-learning exchanges.
The core of the project (with the creation of a logo) has suggested us the following title: Sardinia and Spain: an Intercultural Bridge. The activities to be developed and the expected results are connected to our aim. We intend to:

• foster European cooperation in the school education promoting in the respective schools teaching-learning tutorials on the social inclusion, the analysis of the constitutional and civil rights of individuals and societies;
• create teaching-learning sessions exploiting workshop and cooperative learning techniques to enhance social, emotional competences and active citizenship in working and educational environments;
• favour the exchanges of staff and experiences;
• deepen our common links in terms of culture, history, art, society, language, traditions and habits;
• start out teaching-learning sessions using the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) methodology on the topics associated to the project. (194 words)

General Context

Sardinia (Italy), being an island, has got several problem related to its geographical position. The first one is related to the means of transport and the immediate availability to be able to move freely and everywhere in Europe. Weaknesses in our transport system means a more expensive way of life as well. Secondly, our economical condition, even if there is a big effort to improve tourism, local services and small factories, suffers from lack of a real and steady development in industry and unemployment is spreading fast. Thirdly, the lack of equal opportunities compared to other Italian and European situations. In such a situation most of our students (quite a lot of them are commuters) and their families have to cope with more difficulties than in other socio-economical context. Our schools, nowadays, are facing the long wave of immigrants and their children eager to have a proper and inclusive school education coming from all over the world, in particular, from China, Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. Difficulties are related to the social and cultural inclusion, discrimination and equal education.

Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). The situation is pretty similar. The social and educational conditions are quite difficult as in Sardinia. The geographical area is a natural and historical region placed in the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha, in the centre of Spain, which occupies good part of the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca and Toledo. The agriculture and the ranching have historically been the main economic activities of the region. In agriculture, due to the exploitation of dehydrated fields, the so called "Mediterranean trilogy" stands out: cereals, grapevines and olive trees. Among the cereals, the most cultivated are the wheat and the barley. Nevertheless, during the 20th century, as in the rest of Spain, services have become the key sector of La Mancha’s economy. Inside the sector services, one can emphasize the growth of the tourism, especially of the rural tourism. Unfortunately, due to the economic crisis that affects all Europe, Castilla is suffering  in this field. As for the educational standards we have a high percentage of school failure. Therefore our schools are ruled under the frame of the integration and the social inclusion.

Objectives of the partnership

We have highlighted some themes and topics which should achieve the following objectives by means of formal, informal and non-formal approaches, cooperative learning, workshops, CLIL sessions, exchanges of staff and experiences:

• enhancing the awareness and the concerning on the social inclusion, the constitutional and civil rights of individuals and societies, especially in our schools;
• sustaining affinities and empathy among individuals and societies rather than emphasizing differences and contrasts;
• increasing the value of social, emotional competences and active citizenship in working and educational environments;
• highlighting common links in terms of culture, history, art, society, language, traditions and habits;
• promoting and supporting the exchanges of staff and experiences;
• experimenting and carrying out teaching-learning sessions using the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) methodology on the topics associated to the project.

Work programme

• Sharing plan of the project on the themes and objectives stated above.
• Exchanging digital communication on ideas and topics.
• Planning and acting learning-teaching sessions.
• Involving in an active role the regional and local institutions and associations in the partnership so that they can play a significant role in the dissemination and spreading of the project in both countries.
• Carrying on the mobility of the partnership stakeholders to develop the cultural exchange.
• Creating a final product to give evidence of the whole project and to support dissemination and sustainability of results through video-clips as well.
• Planning the last mobility as a big educational event to support dissemination and to show how the project and the process developed.