Language Teaching, Education for Democracy and Cross-curricular Connections

This introduction to the Special Issue explains the geo-political context in which the contributions have been solicited and written and the policy response of the Council of Europe with which the contributions engage. The presence of war in Europe between Ukraine and Russia, both of which were members of the Council of Europe, is just one element of the threat to democracy. The Council of Europe had already begun work on a framework of reference for teaching democratic and intercultural competences in response to extremist violence in the 2010s and the model produced is all the more important in the current situation. The model – called ‘the butterfly model – lists the values, attitudes, skills and knowledge needed in a pluricultural and democratic Europe as a basis for work in education. In response, the articles introduced here demonstrate how the model can be used in the foreign language classroom and, in two further articles, this work is located in approaches to global education and to the education of teachers.