The meeting was attended by Asunción Aragón Varo, from the English and French Department and Guadalupe Calvo, from the Department of Didactics.

Members of the Master’s program in Gender Studies, Identities, and Citizenship (https://filosofia.uca.es/estudios/masteres/master-universitario-en-estudios-de-genero-identidades-y-ciudadania/) and researchers in the research group “Educational Policy, Public Education, and Social Justice” (PEP-JS), code HUM-109. ( https://hum109.uca.es/)

This is a project of the Erasmus+ programme – Cooperation Partnerships in School Education. The participating universities, in addition to the University of Cádiz, are Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Universiteit Utrecht, Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, and İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi, together with six secondary schools, namely I.E.S. Fernando Quiñones de Chiclana.

The aim of this project is to promote Active Citizenship (AC) in secondary schools and prepare students to exercise active citizenship in Europe. To achieve this, the consortium will work to raise awareness among students and teachers about AC in Education (ACE). To this end, an Active Citizenship Compass (ACC) will be created, learning activities on AC will be designed and implemented, and school policies on Active Citizenship will be developed.

The activities that will contribute to achieving the project’s objectives include: researching the current situation regarding ACE in the partner countries, creating ACC, a digital tool that will assess students’ skills and knowledge levels, training teachers on how to design and implement learning activities and tools on CA, and, consequently, training their students.

Finally, the partners will develop and monitor school policies on Active Citizenship.

It is expected that, after the implementation of the project, students will have developed the skills and attitudes to actively exercise their citizenship in Europe. Teachers and staff at the schools involved will be aware of the concept of AC and will have the necessary skills to train and guide their students on Active Citizenship, both now and in the future.

At this meeting in İzmir, the sessions focused mainly on the phase of the project that addresses the implementation of ACC in the classroom. In this regard, intensive work was carried out on the evaluation and testing of the ‘Active Citizenship Compass’ application.

The ACC Self-Assessment (Active Citizenship Compass) is a dedicated digital tool for students aged 12 to 14, available in all project languages. In addition to analysing the tool (app) at the meeting, pilot tests will be carried out in the near future with teachers and students from all participating institutions.

Similarly, along with the digital tool, the meeting in İzmir discussed the specific and practical materials being created to support teachers and students (aged 12 to 14).

Thus, at this stage of the project, work is underway on two packages of educational resources essential for Active Citizenship Education (ACE).

The first is Teacher Training, a 100-page English-language resource that aims to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills needed for ACE. It covers its principles, its importance in schools, the design of effective activities and the use of the Active Citizenship Compass (ACC) in the classroom.

Complementing this first package, ACE Teaching Tools and Activities is being developed, a second 100-page book that will be available in all the project languages and will offer lesson plans and practical scenarios focused on the three areas that form the backbone of the project: Participating in one’s own environment, Participating in society, and Influencing society.