Innovate debate: applied curriculum for debate based youth work

• Beneficiary: Croatian Debate Society
• Partners: Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga; Polska Debatuje; International Debate Education Association; Slovenská debatná asociácia; Institute for Social Research in Zagreb
• Financed by: European Commision, Erasmus +, KA2
• Duration: September 1, 2019 - August 31, 2022

Through a focus on critical thinking, civic activity, volunteering and youth work and the use of non-formal debate methods, the project will increase learning outcomes, competence development and it will empower young people for participation and inclusion. The main objectives of this project are to promote, professionalize and increase the quality of youth work within partner organizations and across the sector; increase the use of debate methodology with the aim of fostering civic engagement, equality, and inclusion; and to develop use of multilingual, open source digital learning materials. When it comes to applying debate for civic activism or societal transformation, there are almost no studies in Eastern Europe and very few in EU member states in general. The study proposed in this project will answer this need through assessing existing approaches to debate and critical thinking available to students in participating countries (Slovenia, Poland, Netherlands, Slovakia and Croatia) as well as student-NGO engagement opportunities, incitement to volunteering and youth work in youth aged 15 to 19. A connection between various existing non-formal education approaches to volunteer retention will be examined. By using already existing research on the application of debate methodology in formal education systems and extrapolating the results to the non-formal education environment, the study will define best approaches and recommendations for application. The project outcomes will be: a debate based curriculum for non-formal education; open education resource (OER) website covering topics of volunteering, youth work and training using debate methodology, developing educators, using debate on a small scale, recruiting young people for debate clubs and running debate clubs/youth organizations; open source e-learning platform.