Faculty from the School of Education and the Center for International Education, Development and Research (CIEDR) partnered with the Institute for Active Citizenship in Slovakia to offer a professional development workshop for Slovak teachers in citizenship education. Keith Barton, Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, and Arlene Benitez, Director of CIEDR, travelled to Slovakia last October to conduct the workshop. 

The project, funded by the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, was designed to help teachers and civic leaders understand the threat of civic passivity and radicalization of youth and its impact on the quality of democracy in Slovakia, across Central and Eastern Europe and throughout the world, and to develop the knowledge and skills to address the situation in its roots. In addition to a three-day teacher training workshop, the program also brought together educational leaders and civil society organizations for the purpose of building a network dedicated to promoting civic leadership and formulating practical steps and recommendations to achieve a step-by-step improvements in the citizenship education in Slovakia. Barton and Benitez were also interviewed for Slovak print and electronic media, and Barton appeared on a public panel focused on challenges in educating the next generation of young people.