The aim of this project is to promote Active Citizenship (AC) in secondary schools and prepare students to be active citizens in Europe. To achieve this goal, the consortium will work on raising students’ and teachers’ awareness on AC in Education (ACE), create an Active Citizenship Compass (ACC), design and implement learning activities on AC, and develop Active
Citizenship school policies as an excellent practice for secondary schools.

The activities that will contribute to achieve the objectives of the project are as follows: the investigation of the current situation on ACE in partner countries, the creation of ACC - a digital tool that will assess students’ skills and knowledge level on AC -, teachers’ training on how to design and implement learning activities and tools on AC and their students’ training
accordingly. Finally, partners will develop and follow-up the school policies on AC.

It is expected that after the implementation of the project, the students will have developed competences and attitudes in terms of becoming active citizens in Europe. Teachers and HEIs staff will be aware of the concept of AC, having skills required to train and guide their students on Active Citizenship, both now and in the future. Finally, schools will be able to
adapt a dynamic policy on Active Citizenship that will be revised and evaluated on a regular basis.

• Ralph de Jong

Refugee youth and young asylum seekers often find themselves in precarious positions: insecure housing, lack of social networks and employment restrictions, coupled with a lack of money. Many occupy the public spaces of cities and towns where they seek refuge. Their presence in these spaces has been strongly problematized in European immigration debates. There has, by contrast, been far less debate on how young refugees can contribute their own histories, voices and agencies to the development of convivial public spaces and to what extent this can enhance their integration and participation in society.

In many European cities, it is often arts and cultural initiatives that provide a platform for refugee and migrant voices, playing an influential role in their encounters with public space and other people. This study identifies the importance of these initiatives and uses them as the entry-point to researching the personal geographies of young refugees and asylum seekers in four European cities, mapping their migration histories, exploring their post-arrival experiences and asking how their place-making and artistic practices contribute to the transformation of urban public space.

The research focuses on the everyday experiences of refugee youth in Newcastle (UK), Leipzig (Germany), Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Brussels (Belgium). The methodological approach is primarily qualitative and draws heavily upon the principles of participatory research. It includes extensive participatory observation in each of the localities. Refugee youth will be offered a suite of creative methods to choose from for tracing and representing their personal geographies. Whilst being attentive to the migration histories of our participants, we acknowledge the importance of understanding how these align with the particular urban histories of each city. This means that we analyze the discursive constructions and representations of refugee youth in the local media as well.

• dr. Ilse van Liempt

Making Home in Forced Displacement challenges dominant and often hostile social discourses on young Syrian male refugees’ everyday practices in the Netherlands. In particular, Syrian men’s attitudes towards gender and partner roles tend to be considered problematic and detrimental to imagined gender identities and relations. In search of a counter-narrative, this PhD project provides novel insights into the homemaking practices of young Syrian male refugees in everyday places. It illustrates that forced migration and resettlement disrupt many facets of Syrian men’s daily lives and their identities. They complicate previously developed feelings of home, and prospects for a safe and meaningful life. Throughout, the thesis analyses a repertoire of masculinities young Syrian men employ in their articulations of everyday experiences to overcome these challenges. It further discusses the essential role of places and local opportunities in carving out spaces of home in new and unfamiliar societies. Despite the categorical construction as undesired subjects, the empirical evidence foregrounds various responses of young Syrian men to participate and actively construct a home. As a result, the diverse, heterogeneous and multifaceted nature of Syrian men’s everyday practices disrupts simplistic understandings as to how everyday life is organised.

• Helga de Valk
• Bettina van Hoven