We are running a new project, “Community Education Against Disinformation”, which focuses on supporting adult and community education practitioners to promote solidarity and inclusion for diverse communities living side-by-side in Ireland.
There has been a significant increase in racist and divisive thinking and behaviours in Ireland in recent times, including anti-migration protests, arson attacks, and the Dublin riots last November.
Across social media platforms, racist groups are actively putting out information that is false, and intended to deliberately deceive people. It manipulates people to advance the goals of the groups putting out the disinformation.
Educators are seeing increasingly challenging discussions around race and migration taking place among learners in classrooms across the country.
Our network, including over 400 members, has been telling us that there is a strong demand to address these challenges. This is also supported by our local and national research.
Community education is a proven method of bringing people together and increasing empathy and understanding among different groups.
We are looking for someone to work with us to design an activity workbook for practitioners to use in the classroom with learners.
This workbook will encourage empathy and understanding, and help people to navigate and question disinformation online, particularly on social media.
It will get learners thinking about how disinformation and racism has a negative impact on the human rights of people from ethnic minority groups, including the right to equality, to freedom from discrimination, and the right to education.
We want this workbook to promote people’s digital skills and help them navigate the web and social media with awareness and a critical eye.
The workbook will be free for educators to use, and written in an accessible way with Plain English. It will align with the values and ideals of social justice and social equality, which are at the core of community education work.
What is involved in this role?
- Work with us at AONTAS and carry out desktop research to understand the needs of each target group in relation to online disinformation.
- Determine how best to have a safe learning environment for adult and community education practitioners and tutors while they share the workbook with learners in the classroom.
- Facilitate workshops to consult with adult and community education practitioners and learners representing marginalised groups. This will help to determine the specific needs of each target group on how to combat disinformation.
- Develop the activity workbook. This will improve people’s ability to navigate information online, especially on social media, and help them understand online manipulation.
- The particular focus for this project is on people with lower levels of literacy. We want to create awareness of the impact of disinformation on ethnic minority communities.
- Present the draft of the workbook to our working group and advisory group.
- Incorporate their feedback into the final design.
For more information on the role and submitting an application, click here.
The deadline for applications for the role is Monday 23 September at 5pm.
For any queries, please contact Aisling Meyler, AONTAS Research Officer and Project Lead at: recruitment@aontas.com
