BAGSKOL – Teaching Controversial Issues
BAGSKOL was a EUniWell Seed Funding project aimed at strengthening teacher education for culturally complex and controversial issues in the classroom. The project brought together Nantes Université, Linnaeus University, the University of Murcia, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the University of Education Weingarten, and the University of Zaragoza to explore how future teachers can be better prepared to address sensitive topics such as racism, gender, sexuality, religion, multilingualism, and other issues that may be interpreted differently across cultural contexts.
Building on the collaboration established through EUniWell Seed Funding, BAGSKOL developed into a broader Erasmus+ partnership, demonstrating how the Alliance can serve as a catalyst for long-term international cooperation in education. The same six partner universities now work together on a three-year Erasmus+ KA2 project, which successfully secured €400,000 in funding in 2024. The project aims to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges teachers face when addressing culturally complex teaching situations.
Through international collaboration between student teachers, teacher educators, and researchers, the consortium explores how teacher education can better prepare future teachers to recognise and respond to culturally complex situations in the classroom. Activities include international student twinning, courses, seminars, and collaborative work across the partner institutions, bringing together different perspectives and approaches to teaching and learning.
A key ambition of BAGSKOL is to develop practical resources and approaches that can be integrated into teacher education. The project also seeks to strengthen intercultural competences and support more reflective approaches to teaching, helping educators consider how cultural contexts influence the way classroom situations and controversial issues are understood and addressed. One of its key outcomes is the open-access handbook Critical Moments in the Classroom: Case Studies for Reflective Teaching, which provides case studies and resources for teacher education.
