Kids in Cyberspace

Combining young people’s fascination with the Internet with teaching about racism and anti-racism was the inspiration behind the Eurokid project (and this book). The outcome was a joint Spanish, Swedish and British project aimed at developing good anti-racist practice and curricula via the Internet, hence addressing the shortage of authoritative, well-researched resources and teachers’ anxiety and insecurity about tackling the issue. The outcome was a small overall linking site (www.eurokid.org) connected to two new websites (www.spanishkid.org / www.diversidadjuvenil.org and www.swedkid.nu) plus a revised version of the original British website (www.britkid.org). The aim was to make the websites attractive and easy to use, credible and trustworthy, challenging and enabling yet not over-directive and ‘preaching’, and appropriate for use with school computers.

This book charts the progress of the project and the decisions, for good or bad, made along the way concerning, for example, terminology, design and visuals, pedagogical principles and ethics. It has seven chapters which seek to illuminate the Eurokid project in its entirety yet not disguise or homogenise the local contexts and variations to promote a bogus unity or a ‘one size fits all’ mentality. It can be read from beginning to end, or as individual chapters discussing aspects of context, design or evaluation, which can be understood independently. A number of themes emerge and re-emerge; for example, the slippage between the truth claims of research on which much of the content of the websites is built and the fictionalising of characters and dialogues as a means of rendering the issues more accessible to young people; the unity of the whole (the creation of similar websites) building on global networks and ideas, yet the impact of the local in terms of design, content and impact; and the deliberate non-linearity of the websites and texts, which nevertheless promote a recognisable, accessible and distinctly narrative structure. The book provides a fascinating insight into how international attempts at curriculum development can work and a positive picture of the impact of European funding to support social change and equality.