Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

y the students individually – that result in a SWOT analysis of the country and policyrecommendations for the country with respect to one particular European policyissue. In the 2005 course, the Lisbon agenda was the policy issue under consideration.As part of the preparation of the report, students have a two-day study visitto Brussels, during which they interview regional and national representatives, orrelevant sectoral organisations. Loads of relevant documents, course instructions,group workspaces and address lists for organisations in Brussels are all on thecourse website. During this process, students develop an understanding or wherethe particular country and its regions stand in relation to (in this example) the multifacetedLisbon agenda for improving European competitiveness. They learn about thecountry’s strengths and weaknesses with regard to the Lisbon agenda and about theopportunities and threats it poses to the country if it were implemented in unalteredform. They also become aware of the links between the country’s geographical characteristics(relative location, regional inequalities, regional development processes)and the issue under consideration (the Lisbon strategy).The final two weeks are the most hectic period of the course. Groups of countries(for example: new Central-European member states or Southern member states) startbriefing each other about their findings and about what the Lisbon strategy might meanfor their countries. They also look for common ground in the debates that will followabout the Lisbon strategy. Then all 60 or 70 students are assigned new roles as membersof European political parties, but at the same time they keep the ‘geographical origin’ ofthe country they studied earlier. Some students are excluded from this and are allocatedthe roles of either a European Commissioner (for regional policy, competition policy,regional policy, finances) or President/Secretary for the final European Parliamentdebate. Everyone receives a ‘faked’ policy compromise document (produced by theteachers) from the Commission – that links together proposals for the Lisbon strategy,for the future of agricultural policy and regional policy, and the financial frameworkfor all this – that will be the object for the final Parliamentary debate. From thenonwards, the political parties have meetings for deciding about their position in thedebate (based on the real party programmes), country representatives from variousparties may meet in order to negotiate territorial interests across the borders of politicalparties, the Commission meets in order to prepare its presentation and defence of theproposal plus the room for compromise. This all feeds into the final debate, that maytake a full day and that is the last element of the course.ExperiencesEvaluations of this ‘European Integration’ course by subsequent groups of studentsand by the teachers who are involved in the course lead to a number of observationsabout the ‘educational experience’ that the module offers. Technical evaluationresults, about the study load, clarity of tasks, or fairness of grading, are left out fromthese observations. We want to focus on the ‘citizenship education’ and ‘politicaleducation’ aspects of the course.• The close-to-reality simulation of the political process, with roles for politicalparties, the European Commission, regional coalitions, national interests, about285