Research Article

ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION

Volume: 8 Number: 1 May 25, 2026
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ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION

Abstract

Education in values is a core element of European policies and, thus, included in common legal educational reference documents and national curricula. The promotion of values and their teaching from early childhood education help address current pressing social and political issues, especially by building resilience to radicalization leading to conflictive situations, violent extremism, wars and armed conflicts or polarization. Intercultural Communicative Competence is essential to appreciate one’s own culture and understand the others’ culture avoiding prejudices and stereotypes, or negative judgment (usually connected to biases) and adjusting linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements during communication accordingly. eTwinning is a safe, free, European platform to develop transnational collaborative projects among two or more European centers putting real teachers and students from different countries in contact. Considering this, this paper shows the results of the research on interculturality and a transnational cooperative project under the umbrella of an eTwinning project between Sweden and Spain on how to teach democratic values in Primary Education among future teachers of such stage. First, student teachers had to reflect on how they understood each assigned democratic value and created a 45-minute lesson teaching such value for Primary Education and then completed a digital form to reflect and evaluate the project itself and their gains in terms of European, democratic values and interculturality awareness. The findings allow understanding the selected values (forgiveness, inclusion, kindness, love, respect and unselfishness) under each country’s perspective and curricula and ascertain strengths and weaknesses of this kind of project and interculturality development.

Keywords

Ethical Statement

This paper has the Social Research Ethics Committee of the University of Castilla-La Mancha’s full approval under reference number CEIS-2024-25503.

Thanks

This paper is under the umbrella of the initiative for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Institutions, and so within the European project eTwinning for Future Teachers (for more information, see Tosi & Baptista, 2023). This paper also falls under the scope of the UCLM GID BEST—Bilingual Education, Service-learning and eTwinning—Group, in which author 1 is co-principal researcher.

References

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  3. CAST. (2026, May). Universal design for learning. https://www.cast.org/what-we-do/universal-design-for-learning/
  4. Council of Europe. (2020). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing. https://rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-languages-learning-teaching/16809ea0d4
  5. Council of the European Union. (2018). Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on key competences for lifelong learning. Official Journal of the European Union, C 189, 1–13. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604%2801%29&from=EN
  6. Council of Europe. (2018). Reference framework of competences for democratic culture. Council of Europe Publishing. https://rm.coe.int/prems-008318-gbr-2508-reference-framework-of-competences-vol-1-8573-co/16807bc66c
  7. Council of Europe. (2021). The reference framework of competences for democratic culture in brief. Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP). https://rm.coe.int/prems-004721-the-reference-framework-of-competences-for-democratic-cul/1680a27f24
  8. Decreto 81/2022, de 12 de julio, por el que se establece la ordenación y el currículo de Educación Primaria en la comunidad autónoma de Castilla-La Mancha [Decree 81/2022, July, 12, establishing the curriculum of Primary Education in the Region of Castilla-La Mancha]. (2022). Diario Oficial de Castilla-La Mancha, (137). https://educacion.castillalamancha.es/sites/default/files/normativas/2025-09/DECRETO%2081-2022%20ordenaci%C3%B3n%20y%20curr%C3%ADculo%20Educaci%C3%B3n%20primaria.pdf

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

In-Service Training, Instructional Design, Values ​​education, Multicultural Education, Comparative and Cross-Cultural Education, Teacher Education and Professional Development of Educators

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

May 25, 2026

Submission Date

April 27, 2026

Acceptance Date

May 20, 2026

Published in Issue

Year 2026 Volume: 8 Number: 1

APA
Sánchez Ruiz, R., & Wilhelmsson, G. (2026). ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION. Journal of Advanced Education Studies, 8(1), 186-205. https://doi.org/10.48166/ejaes.1938874
AMA
1.Sánchez Ruiz R, Wilhelmsson G. ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION. EJAES. 2026;8(1):186-205. doi:10.48166/ejaes.1938874
Chicago
Sánchez Ruiz, Raquel, and Georgia Wilhelmsson. 2026. “ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION”. Journal of Advanced Education Studies 8 (1): 186-205. https://doi.org/10.48166/ejaes.1938874.
EndNote
Sánchez Ruiz R, Wilhelmsson G (May 1, 2026) ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION. Journal of Advanced Education Studies 8 1 186–205.
IEEE
[1]R. Sánchez Ruiz and G. Wilhelmsson, “ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION”, EJAES, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 186–205, May 2026, doi: 10.48166/ejaes.1938874.
ISNAD
Sánchez Ruiz, Raquel - Wilhelmsson, Georgia. “ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION”. Journal of Advanced Education Studies 8/1 (May 1, 2026): 186-205. https://doi.org/10.48166/ejaes.1938874.
JAMA
1.Sánchez Ruiz R, Wilhelmsson G. ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION. EJAES. 2026;8:186–205.
MLA
Sánchez Ruiz, Raquel, and Georgia Wilhelmsson. “ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION”. Journal of Advanced Education Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, May 2026, pp. 186-05, doi:10.48166/ejaes.1938874.
Vancouver
1.Raquel Sánchez Ruiz, Georgia Wilhelmsson. ETHICAL AND CIVIC VALUES THROUGH ETWINNING IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING: CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION. EJAES. 2026 May 1;8(1):186-205. doi:10.48166/ejaes.1938874