Peer education There are many approaches to education and many methodologies and methods used in educational processes, the choice of which is usually determined by the target group, the aims and objectives, the time available and resources at hand. “Peer education“ in the STAR project is an approach, a communication channel, a methodology, a philosophy and a strategy.
What is peer education? The term itself consists of two words and their explanations may be helpful in understanding what peer education really is. “Peer” usually refers to а person who we share а certain characteristic with, such as: age, gender, belonging to the same social group, doing the same job, or having the same social status. However, traditionally the term has been mainly used in relation to age. Education is more complicated to define as it may happen as a part of a planned process (formal and non-formal education) or totally incidentally (informal education) by using very different tools. In general, education is the process during which we learn something – getting knowledge, learning some skills, developing character and/or developing attitudes. So, in a nutshell, peer education is about learning from peers. And in the case of the STAR project, it is young people learning from young people. One can say that there is nothing special about it; young people in general always learn something from other young people. This is naturally true, however, most of such learning happens incidentally (during school breaks, during leisure time activities, or while doing sports). All of this is very valid as our peers are a very important source of learning. However, in some instances the content of such learning may be inaccurate, based on stereotypes, or fake news. Peer education aims at effecting change in people who have the same characteristics as we do – the change on individual level (e.g. change of attitudes, development of new skills or new knowledge) or a bigger social level (e.g. modifying norms or stimulating collective action to bring about change). In order to achieve it we used the principles, approaches and methodology of non-formal education, which is a planned educational process with concrete learning objectives using a variety of methods that promote participation and holistic learning. Our aim was to change attitudes related to racism
Constellations . A manual for working with young people on the topic of racism and invisible racism
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