Learning About Social Exclusion-Helping Towards Social Inclusion - Georgia Maneta, Greece

Do you know what “exclude someone” means? It means you don’t want a person to be near you either as a friend, or as a co-worker or as a simple acquaintance only because of some social prejudices… Social Exclusion is unfortunately an omnipresent phenomenon in today’s society. People get rejected from a job or from more personal relationships because of their age, body, gender, appearance, skin color or race. These types of discriminations are not based on logic. They are the result of the fear of the different. People are afraid of someone who is different from them and they cannot easily accept them. What can we do to eliminate social exclusion?

Year 5 and 6 students from the 2nd Primary School Mileon-Kalon Neron in Greece collaborated with students from Poland, Spain, Turkey and Malaysia on an eTwinning project called “Social Ex/Inclusion”. During this annual project, students had the chance to work on different activities in order to realize that they may be different, yet they are the same. They first worked on clarifying what makes a “House” feel like “Home” (you can see their thoughts here).

Then, they were asked to describe their dreams for the future (the younger students had to draw a backpack and “place” their dreams inside whereas the older ones had to write about them. The collection of the students’ dreams can be seen here… Hey! Maybe you can see your dreams in this book!

Later, students got in transnational groups and worked on Social Exclusion based on 4 different reasons: appearance, status, age and gender. They had to find quotes, pictures that denoted the above types of exclusion or comment on them. Thanks to the 4 groups’ amazing work, you can watch some amazing videos and learn more about these types.

1. Social Exclusion based on Appearance

2. Social Exclusion based on Social Status

3. Social Exclusion based on Age

4. Social Exclusion based on Gender

The final, and most demanding activity, was for students and educators to put up a blog where students’ opinions on how to promote Social Inclusion were shared. The blog can be found here and I am sure you will agree on all the things that you will read in it!

The project was a real success as it helped students realize that nobody is perfect! We are all humans and we deserve to be treated like humans. What about you? How do you feel about Social Exclusion? Have you ever felt it? How can we stop it? We are waiting for your opinions on this Linoit.

- Georgia Maneta, EFL Educator, Greece