Fit4EU? Fostering teachers` professional competences for EU civic education through digital trainings

Given the high dynamics of European integration and other specific challenges of teaching and learning about the European Union, such as the perceived hyper complexity, the (perceived) distance from everyday life, widespread prejudices and disinformation as well as the difficulty of dealing with controversy in polarized debates (e.g., Damiani et al. 2024; Frech et al. 2021; Grimonprez 2020; Oberle & Forstmann 2015; Schöne 2021), teachers’ life-long learning is an essential prerequisite for a successful education on the EU. The Jean Monnet project Fit4EU (https://fit4eu.org/en, 2023-2025) aimed at making a relevant and lasting contribution for an effective, target-group specific education on the EU in Germany and beyond by means of four training strands. A structured training program, specifically tailored to respective target groups (including so-called "hard-to-reach-learners" who have been severely neglected so far, e.g., at vocational schools), has been developed, tested in two cycles in a digital and hybrid format and systematically evaluated. With its four training strands, Fit4EU aimed to contribute to an inclusive education on the EU that dismantles existing structural disadvantages and promotes broader, critical and enlightened participation of future generations concerning opportunities and political decision-making processes of the EU. The empirical research accompanying the teacher trainings implemented a mixed-methods approach, with semi-standardized questionnaires at three to four points of measurement (longitudinal sample N= 140) as well as interviews with selected participants (N=21). Furthermore, a semi-standardized online questionnaire was sent to several thousands of civics teachers throughout the German Laender regarding their educational practice of teaching EU, encountered challenges, their feeling of self-efficacy regarding EU education and their training needs (ongoing survey, so far N= ca. 1.200). Analyses of the quantitative data were conducted in SPSS and MPlus, while the qualitative data (open ended questions and interviews) was analyzed according to qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz 2019), supported by Maxqda. The final results of these two connected studies will be presented at the ECPR conference. The paper focuses on the perceived competence, challenges, teaching practice, and training needs of civics teachers regarding EU education (including the influence of socio-demographic background variables, such as pre-service training, in-service training, gender and age) as well as the effects of digital multi-modular trainings on teachers` (content and pedagogical content) knowledge and self-efficacy regarding education on the EU.