CONCORDIA - Cooperation, Need for Communication and Resumption of Dialogue in relation to Age-groups
The average age of the population in Europe is raising. This increases the importance of intergenerational dialogue and lifelong learning. The project “CONCORDIA - Cooperation, Need for Communication and Resumption of Dialogue in Relation to Age-Groups” of the European Union wants to strengthen the educational strategies dealing with demographic change and intergenerational dialogue. CONCORDIA is an interdisciplinary and international project sponsored by the European Grundtvig-programme. Associates are universities from Czestochowa in Poland, Bratislava in the Slovak Republic and Karadeniz in Turkey. The ZAK is the partner institution of this programme for the KIT in Germany.
Five conference meetings were held from March 2013 until June 2014. The ZAK promoted the role of key-competencies in lifelong learning as well as an intercultural idea of intergenerational learning. The results of the individual meetings, each focusing on a different aspect of intergenerational learning will be published and put forward as policy recommendations for both political and educational institutions. The final meeting in June 2014 took place in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Future projects looking into age and internationality are planned.
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Sum-up and Recommendations
While demographic change affects all of European society, the situation and response in each nation state vary and, moreover, are marked by regional disparities. The partner countries engaged in the CONCORDIA project represent the margins of current demographic proportions on the European continent: Slovakia, not unlike Poland and Germany currently have ageing populations in contrast to Turkey, where the share of younger people is larger.
Based on the joint results of CONCORDIA ZAK proposes the following recommendations to multipliers and decision-makers: PDF (approx. 400kb)
Conference Proceedings
Project results and contributions to all five conferences have been published by Slovak University of Technology. The conference proceedings comprises contributions by Laura Gressnerová, Ivan Prelovský, Karin Raková, Zora Bútorová, Miraç Akçay, Mine Gözübüyük Tamer, Katarzyna Łazorko, Editha Marquardt, Peter Plavčan, Mária Šulanová, Gabriela Dováľová, Ján Košta, Marta Zając, Danes Brzica, Vladimír Báleš, Vladimír Pira, Nadežda Hrapková, Soňa Pokorná, Mária Chaloupková and Franziska Schaaf.