Conspiracy theories and misinformation have a much stronger impact on public discourse than they did just a few years ago and are now present through a wide range of information channels to a large part of German as well as European populations (Butter 2018). Current empirical findings show an increasing number of people believing in at least one conspiracy theory - in Germany one in four adults- as well as a growing number of older adults (Butter 2018, Decker, Kiess and Brähler 2013, van Prooijen and Douglas 2017). These theories often challenge the foundation of the democratic order, fundamental human rights and European cooperation.Especially regarding the growing number of older adults believing in conspiracy theories, adult education institutions are coming to the fore. In Germany, there are so far mainly isolated, often unique educational offers of individual adult education centers (VHS Rostock, Chemnitz or Friedrichshafen, for example, offer courses). However, so far no overall handling of this phenomenon is known. In the context of the growing presence of conspiracy theories in pan-European space, it is therefore important to find out to what extent these phenomena also in adult education and to develop training opportunities that understand the fight against conspiracy theories and misinformation as a cross-sectional task of adult education in all areas, but especially in political and cultural education, in dealing with these theories. Therefore, in this project, on the one hand the needs of adult education institutions in dealing with conspiracy theories shall be examined and instruments for continuous monitoring should be provided, and on the other hand, a concept will be developed enabling the educators to deal with the theories that are relevant in their context. Particular emphasis is placed on European co-operation in the development in order to ensure an application of outputs in all EU countries.The immediate target group of the project are educators of adult education. Since conspiracy theories are becoming more and more relevant for a growing part of the European society and, as already mentioned above, have become more prevalent among older people in particular, a concept is to be developed that is suitable for all teachers in adult education institutions. Even if educators in the political or cultural field come into contact with them much more frequently than, for example, teachers in the informatics, these programs should not be tailored only to the former. It is important to establishing a resistance to conspiracy theories as a cross-cutting task of adult education institutions. Therefore, the educators should be trained both in the detection of conspiracy theories, and thus the critical questioning of their own fields of vision, as well as in the discursive dealing with them. The indirect target group are students in adult education courses. Here too the focus should only be placed on genuinely socio-scientific areas of adult education, but include learners from all fields. In order to be able to work out a concept as accurately as possible, however, it is first necessary to raise the experience and needs of adult education institutions and to create a tool for continuous examination by the institutions themselves. The immediate target group here is educators in a leading function who will be enabled to accurately identify the needs of their educators and then react to the them using the educational concepts developed in this project.

"<< Background >>The motivation for the proposal is the identified need for teachers to recognize and deal with conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. The confrontation with conspiracy theories and related extremist beliefs by students poses special pedagogical challenges to schools and teachers and gains additional relevance and influence due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the related governmental responses to combat it (Vajen and Wolf 2021 i.E.). Conspiracy theories are an attack on common European values and must be countered through educational programs. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has once again become clear that students are also susceptible to extremist indoctrination and belief in conspiracy theories (Calmbach et al. 2020). According to the current Shell Youth Study, about 34 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 25 agree with the statement that ""[t]he German society is being infiltrated by Islam"" (Albert et al. 2019: 78). The Sinus study also finds that some young people pick up and spread conspiracy-theory information - especially in connection with Covid-19. In addition to the social environment (Calmbach et al. 2020), an important source for such statements is social media such as YouTube or Telegram (MPFS 2019).The goal of civic engagement based on fundamental European values and the associated active and self-determined participation in political, cultural and social life as a fundamental prerequisite of a democratic society is being jeopardized by a progression of conspiracy-theory discourses. These discourses call into question the basic democratic order, fundamental human rights and European cooperation, have explicit extremist connotations and must be classified as extremely problematic against the backdrop of a democratic society. After all, if a society can no longer agree on what is true, it will be impossible to master the pressing problems of the 21st century (Butter 2018). Therefore, the project aims to contribute to the preservation and strengthening of European values by developing innovative diagnostic methods and effective didactic procedures for teachers to counteract conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. The didactical and pedagogical practice ultimately aims at changing conspiracy-theoretical ideas and beliefs of young people. From the perspective of learning theory, however, these cannot simply be changed or replaced by the provision of knowledge. Rather, they are embedded in a system of beliefs and are linked to a person's personality and identity (Rokeach 1968). In this context, the goal of this project is to provide schools and teachers with the tools to effectively prevent and counter conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. The project aims to achieve this goal by creating innovative didactic materials based on the latest findings in civic education, educational science and social psychology research, and by supporting teachers in recognizing extremist beliefs and conspiracy theories and assessing their prevalence among their student body.<< Objectives >>The project aims to contribute to the preservation and strengthening of European values by developing innovative diagnostic methods and effective didactic procedures for teachers to counteract conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. In this context, schools and teachers should be equipped with the appropriate tools to effectively prevent and counter conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. The need for this arises on the one hand from the increased prevalence of conspiracy theories in society and the associated demands on schools and teachers, and on the other hand from the extremist beliefs as well as the anti-democratic character associated with them. Therefore, two central goals can be identified for the project, which are reflected in the two extensive outputs. First, the goal is to enable schools and teachers to continuously monitor the presence of extremist beliefs and conspiracy theories and the related needs of teachers in order to be able to react competently to possible demands. Such an instrument and a handout for the application, evaluation and interpretation of the results will be created, implemented, evaluated and disseminated within the framework of Output 1 (IO1). A tool will be created for schools to independently and without additional monetary expenses, e.g. for statistical software, survey the spread of extremist beliefs and conspiracy theories of students as well as their thematic focus in order to be able to react with demand-oriented educational offers. The first goal of the project is to enable schools to do this without external help, both during and after the project. The second goal is the qualification of teachers in recognizing and dealing with conspiracy theories. This is to be ensured by the development of a curriculum and teaching/learning materials as output 2 (IO2). The second output complements the first output. The aim here is to inform teachers about the structure of conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs in general, as well as the narratives associated with them in particular, and to provide them with tried and tested teaching/learning materials based on current didactic and social psychological research findings for dealing with these in the context of teaching. At best, these can be applied in combination with IO1, but also without it. The material created here will be tested for its suitability and effectiveness within the project at the participating schools. The aim here is to create a tool for teachers that facilitates the recognition of conspiracy theories and extremist narratives and enables a didactic intervention that is tailored to the respective narratives. These materials will be tested and finalized during the project and can be used independently by schools after the project.At the end of the project, the outputs should provide teachers with high-quality diagnostic methods for conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs and, linked to this, tailored didactic materials for preventing or dealing with them in the classroom, in order to enable students to participate as European citizens in a responsible, democracy-oriented manner based on fundamental European values.<< Implementation >>Conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs and attitudes pose a challenge to teachers and have become increasingly vocalized in societal discourses, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These narratives combine beliefs about the influence of powerful actors with pseudo-scientific, racist and anti-Semitic narratives, and work against the goals of a tolerant and democratic education. The identified relevance of conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs for school education and the related challenges for teachers lead to a need for appropriate tools to enable a confident handling of them. Of particular interest is on the one hand the possibility of a demand-oriented organization of the teaching/learning processes, which is made possible by the production of a valid and flexibly applicable instrument. The results of the project are innovative products, which do not exist in a comparable form so far and offer schools the possibility to survey the spread of conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs independently and to align their own teaching processes according to their needs.On the other hand, the necessity also arises to equip teachers with adequate information materials and didactic strategies to counteract conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs. From a learning theory perspective, extremist beliefs and attitudes as well as the belief in conspiracy theories cannot simply be changed or replaced by the provision of knowledge. Rather, they are embedded in a system of beliefs and are linked to a person's personality and identity. In this context, in addition to a knowledge of their structure and the subject areas associated with them, a change in ideas and beliefs also requires targeted teaching materials that address the corresponding pre-concepts and can irritate them accordingly. Such a demand-oriented approach does not exist so far in the currently offered information materials.This output of the project is intended to close this gap and thus address the need for effective and tailored didactic materials. Therefore, based on the findings of the survey instrument, the aim is to create materials that provide teachers with a detailed source of information about the narratives of existing conspiracy theories on the one hand, and at the same time include teaching materials and didactic strategies that teachers can use to counter them. In addition, teaching materials will also be provided to enable teachers to carry out prevention work and equip students with skills to reduce the likelihood of believing in conspiracy theories and extremist narratives. These learning materials should draw on findings from educational studies (see Poon et al. 2020, Swami et al. 2014, Wilson 2018) and be tested in schools using a design-based research approach. This is to ensure the quality and fit of the learning materials. By linking to the previous output and the methodologically controlled testing of the materials in different types of schools in different European countries within the project, on the one hand, the impact of the materials in terms of the expected learning effects should be ensured, but on the other hand, the widest possible application in different educational settings should be ensured.<< Results >>The central aim of this project is to support teachers in dealing with conspiracy theories and extremist attitudes by developing innovative teaching methods as well as possibilities for grasping students concepts. In order to achieve this, the project will develop two outputs that will intertwine to produce different outcomes. Through the REACT-Survey, teachers (both within the participating organizations and teachers at other schools) as well as persons with leading activities within the school will be enabled to identify the processing needs regarding a pedagogical intervention or prevention of possible conspiracy-theoretical attitudes and extremist beliefs of students. They will be able to conduct the investigation independently with the help of the survey and to analyze and interpret it with the help of the manual (IO1). On the basis of the REACT curriculum (IO2), they can then derive appropriate measures that they can implement at class or year level. Since the curriculum is not reduced to materials for students, but also provides a low-threshold introduction to the topic of ""conspiracy theories and extremism"" for the reader, the diverse skills and knowledge of teachers are developed. These include the development of the ability to identify conspiracy theories for their racist or anti-democratic basic attitude, the acquisition of knowledge about terms that are related to conspiracy theories, awareness and recognition of conspiracy theory statements and their systematics, the recognition of motivations for adhering to conspiracy theories, especially with a focus on the phase of adolescence, the role of the Internet as a multiplier for the dissemination and consolidation of conspiracy theories among children and adolescent channels, and the development of competencies on how to counter conspiracy theories pedagogically.Through the implementation of the REACT curriculum (IO2), students should also systematically address the topic of conspiracy theories and political extremism in the context of lessons, teaching units or project days. In addition to acquiring knowledge and awareness of various socially relevant conspiracy theories, the students should be enabled to evaluate and classify the content they see on social media channels. In particular, the level of media literacy is addressed as a preventive measure against the daily danger of absorbing information from unsafe sources. Furthermore, the students are to deal with their own belief system, reflect on it and examine it with regard to possible conspiracy-theoretical false assumptions. The presented concept thereby aims at the development of civic different competencies. These include communication skills, respect for fundamental rights, appreciation of democracy, rejection of discrimination and racism, a sense of responsibility for one's own decisions and actions, awareness of conspiracy theories as well as democratic thinking and decision-making, the formation of critical thinking and reflection on one's own biases."