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About the project

About the project

The project “Navigating Social Worlds: Toolbox for Social Inquiry” started in 2021, and it is implemented by a consortium of five organizations from Central and Eastern Europe: SGH Warsaw School of Economics (leader), Babeș and Bolyai University (Romania), Public Policy Management Institute (Lithuania), University of Latvia (Latvia), and University of Tartu (Estonia). The project aims at providing resources to students in secondary and higher education engaged in social science inquiry, as well as supporting educators in teaching courses of social sciences more effectively.

Our approach

As an international team of partners from Central and Eastern Europe, we share a similar culture of education: frontal education that is knowledge-oriented, rather than skills-oriented. We believe that by learning how to conduct social research, students will be able to consciously and critically learn about the social world around them. Therefore, the most important output of our work is the Toolbox – a database of didactic modules and tools, supporting both students and teachers in social inquiry. The Toolbox is constructed in a way that not only provides theoretical materials, but also encourages students to work independently and develop their research interests through tasks and exercises that promote reflective and critical thinking.

Another imperative goal of the project is to contribute to the closing of the digital divide between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Indeed, Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to integrate digital skills into the teaching culture. We plan to do this by strengthening digital skills (among students and teachers) and skills related to the implementation of social research with the use of digital resources.

Our goals are:

  1. Equipping faculty members and teachers with innovative tools that can be used to teach social research methods.
  2. Providing pupils and students with knowledge, skills and competences that will enable them to collect and analyze data.
  3. Promoting a critical interpretation of public discourses and narratives.
  4. Mapping the existing practices and solutions in the field of online teaching and learning at universities in selected countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
  5. Supporting regional digital skills backlog and reduce the digital divide.

 

OUTPUTS DELIVERED

 

Reports on online teaching by universities in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic in Central and Eastern European countries

We identified, analyzed and compared the policies and strategies implemented at the national level for online learning as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We have compiled 5 country reports, thus providing comparable data on how different CEE countries have responded to the sudden need to 'shift' to distance learning.

Summaries:

Full reports:

 

Small scale cross-sectional survey on students and teachers’ perceptions of teaching online

We conducted surveys in four countries (Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania), which included BA and MA students. In part, the survey inquired about the challenges university students faced in relation to the "transition" to distance learning, and what their further expectations were, especially in the context of learning social research methods.

Research reports:

 

Toolbox for Social Inquiry

We developed 18 teaching modules grouped into four thematic categories: introduction to social research, designing the research process, methods of collecting and interpreting research data, and presenting the results of scientific research. The modules were developed collectively by all partners. These are comprehensive materials ready for use by teachers and students alike.  

 

Recommendations and good practices in teaching social research

This output will comprise recommendations for quality implementation of research methods classes in higher education. It will be a set of policy and teaching recommendations, and a collection of best practices identified while implementing the toolbox.

 

Further publications: