Framework Curriculum for qualified democratic Youth Work against racism and discrimination

Aims of the tool

This curriculum tries to tackle racism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination among youth groups and against themselves by providing youth workers with a methodological and strategic concept of action to be able to react situational, perspectival and in a pedagogical way for working with young people. Therefore, it focuses on required competences to identify and tackle the roots of antidemocratic and violent radicalisation. Thereby it is looking to enable the development of comprehensive non-formal educational measures that fit the respective settings and can be implemented into the daily (working) life. It attempts to be an interdisciplinary and internationally usable qualification concept for the pedagogical tackling of democracy-defying attitudes, such as racism and neo-Nazism. Transferability is ensured as target groups or settings are not fixed. A flexible framework is offered which youth workers and trainers can adapt to their own field of work and team. The concept of the curriculum as a framework offers opportunity to adjust topics to the specific local situation and surroundings, as well as to combine and organise them in formats of further education and training.

Description of the tool

The Curriculum is a qualification concept offering concrete suggestions and course content for democracy promoting youth work. Therefore, it mainly is catered towards youth work training providers. They may use it for the planning of training courses and to evaluate their own practice. The content of the curriculum relies on expertise in good practice and scientific findings on the topic.

Furthermore, the document itself provides an overview on necessary competences youth workers should adopt when dealing with antidemocratic tendencies. The curriculum will help youth workers to strengthen their professional practice by offering ways of improvement, as well as enable them to uncover resources they already have.

Lastly, the curriculum is meant to act as a basis for discussion among experts, youth work training providers and stakeholders in the field of quality development in democracy promoting youth work. The curriculum provides suggestions towards changes in local youth politics and funding, as well as arguments for an enhancement in public recognition of democratic youth work as a profession based on profound knowledge and skills.

This publication is accompanied by a second manual which is a handbook for designing youth work activities to promote democracy and fight discrimination called "Strategic Planning in Democratic Youth Work" and will be soon updated here in Salto-youth