Moving Beyond Perceived Borders: Dealing with Disagreement in Contested Borders

Borders divide land into countries, sometimes creating new divisions within communities, or even between them. Where a border is placed is a highly contested issue and to this day many borders cause serious conflict.

This workshop is the product of the Learning to Disagree project. This project was initiated in response to the needs of educators who experience difficulties in addressing sensitive and controversial issues in their classrooms. The project, now in its final stages, offers training and support materials for teachers to face these topics head-on with their students. These materials aim to teach students vital skills such as the ability to listen, to consider alternative interpretations, as well as the ability of interacting in a constructive manner with people they disagree with.

Amaia and Angela are core members of the Learning to Disagree project.  In this workshop they will aim to present the work they have developed. Starting with a general introduction on how the multiperspectivity approach can help us to work on contested issues in the classroom, they will then present the materials we have created to help our students reflect and debate on the topic of borders. We will present the sources we have gathered from different European contexts  as examples of a variety of perspectives about contested borders and we will suggest some possible activities and strategies to work with students in order to make them aware of how communities draw their borders, and how we can deal with disagreement in cases of controversy.