Educational Workshop: How to Teach Students about Social Polarisation?

Where is our planet heading if democracies fail? Severe polarisation correlates with serious democratic decline, it can paralyse communities and countries in their attempt to make political decisions and it cripples a healthy discourse and dialogue. We aim to help tackle this challenge by educating young people about the cognitive and social mechanisms that lead to polarisation (e.g. confirmation bias, stereotypisation) and by equipping them with some skills to deal with the problem. Within an international Erasmus+ project Action for Interactive Anti-Polarisation Learning Experiences for a Better Democracy we are preparing educational experiences for various audiences and formats: offline and online, and including social simulations of the process. During the workshop at the ISA Forum we would like to share and discuss an interactive game-based workshop format designed for students.

Workshop participants will first get an opportunity to play an educational game on polarisation themselves; the best way to see it from their students’ perspective. The second part would be a co-creation workshop as we would like the participating teachers to discuss their experience and help us refine the format and adapt to their needs in a form of ‘case clinics’ session. Together we will help guide them through the process of how such a game can work in the classroom, so they get an understanding of how this educational method can be implemented. In this way, their students will be able to experience how easily polarisation evolves without delving into existing polarities as our topics are completely abstract.