DISC stands for Digital Skills for Integration and Active Citizenship and it is a three-year project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union carried out by 5 partners from Finland, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Slovenia.
DISC Background
In today’s Europe, information and communication technologies (ICT) have become the primary source of information about political, social, cultural, academic, and many other affairs and provide access to multiple public and private services. In this context, digital skills are crucial for being an active member of society, and they are also needed for involvement in virtual communities and social interactions.
Data from the EU countries show that newly arrived immigrants and their offspring are often poorly involved in communities, less successful in standard education and suffer from exclusion and isolation mostly because of their lower social, economic, and cultural capital and language difficulties. With a fast-growing immigrant population in Europe, there is a strong need for tools that support immigrants’ integration process and prevent exclusion. This can be successfully done by enhancing immigrants’ digital skills and competences, which can:
improve their autonomy in educational process
facilitate inclusion into society through the use of digital technology
support better, easier and faster understanding of host countries, culture, and language
enable them to stay in touch with their culture, people and prevent isolation
DISC Objectives
The DISC aims to:
Enhance digital skills of people with a migratory background and thus support and promote their integration and active citizenship.
Promote intercultural dialogue between local and migrant communities through digital tools.
Strengthen the role of higher education institutions and schools as open digital skills learning environments.
Provide teachers and other educational staff with inclusive teaching methods and tools.
Create networks at local, regional and European level for spreading good practices of educational integration.
DISC Target Groups
The DISC project targets a wide range of groups from local to international level including:
Students and young people with migratory background and other digitally excluded groups
Youth workers
Local and regional decision-makers from the educational sector
Teachers, educational staff, informal educators, and students
Local and regional communities working with refugees and immigrants
Cooperation networks of higher education institutions and other relevant operators
DISC Activities
During the three-year project, DISC partners will carry out various research and development activities and face-to-face meetings with migrants, young people and local stakeholders. The main DISC activities include:
Analysis of two transferable best practices – the Multisensory Space method by Laurea University of Applied Sciences and the SMART PLUS project by INCOMA) and their upscaling and replication.
Development of blueprints and guidelines for the best practices’ implementation.
Needs analysis and local community building: each partner will map local community actors and stakeholders and set up a collaborative local partnership.
Transferring best practices to the local context and developing implementation guidelines adapted to the local needs.
Piloting the best practices with local institutions in each partner country.
DISC Results
The project activities will result in a series of materials and documents supporting transferability and sustainability of the best practices.
Multisensory Space Toolkit and dedicated guidelines
for teachers, educators and other professionals working with migrants.
Self-assessment toolkit
on soft skills and digital competences.
DISC Research Report on the sustainability of projects
including best and worst practice examples.