
The project aims to map myths and distortions of historical facts among youth and deconstruct them through the tools of historic-civic education. Myths and distortions are often carriers of stereotypes but, in many cases, young people accept them as truths and don’t question them, thus becoming easy targets for groups spreading myths. The inability to recognize these myths leads to the growth of prejudices and stereotypes, hate speech and radicalization; and becomes even more worrying in the era of the internet as these myths can easily reach young people through social media. By deconstructing popular myths and distortions of historical facts, the project will contribute to giving young people the tools to combat radicalization, prejudices, and stereotypes and to decrease the attraction for populism and authoritarianism among European youth.
All the project's partners have experience with historic-civic education and are willing to address these myths and distortions in order to deconstruct them. Through the project, the partners will get to understand better which myths are most relevant to youth, which topics to tackle, how to implement the new learned methods and, as a result, they will become more successful in their work.
The project will focus on myths from the past, covering the topics of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, anti-Gypsysm and Roma discrimination, anti-Muslim propaganda and xenophobia. Also, the partners are going to consider nowadays myths regarding anti-migrant and anti-refugees’ propaganda and discuss how European societies are using similar patterns to create new “enemies and scapegoats”.