Researchers from 6 European universities, working on the international Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Project: Innovative Curriculum for Strong Identities in Diverse Europe (INSIDE), have developed study materials for a university course on youth identity development, said Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) Psychology Institute Prof. Saulė Raižienė.

The university-level course, prepared during 2016-2018, is one of several materials prepared as part of the INSIDE Project.

The first one, SIDE curriculum, presents study materials and resources for a university course on youth identity development. The Strong Identities in Diverse Europe (SIDE) curriculum was developed by youth researchers from partner universities and tested in a course with an international group of students from five European universities. This curriculum is now publicly available for use.

The curriculum is oriented towards 6 ECTS (168 hours) course, but can be adapted by interested universities and other institutions to suit the needs of their students and teachers. You can access SIDE curriculum here https://inside.mruni.eu/en/curriculum.

The second output of the INSIDE project includes two compendiums of scholarly papers on youth identity development in Europe, which were published in two leading peer-reviewed journals. One of them is in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2018, 47/4), where a special section, “Developing identities: Individual and Social Resources” has been prepared under the project. The other compendium is integrated in a recent issue of the European Psychologist (2018, 23/4), with two reviews on different aspects of youth identity development prepared under the project. The papers can be accessed through the project website: https://inside.mruni.eu/en/compendium.

The final and third output, I-TOOLS, aims to make the latest research findings on youth identity easily accessible to broad audiences, including educators, policy makers, and youth organizations. The online resource I-TOOLS was prepared with popular videos, interviews with scholars, as well as other resources for those interested in youth identity development. You can access I-TOOLS here: https://inside.mruni.eu/itools.

All three resources developed during the INSIDE project are closely inter-related in terms of topics covered and perspectives on youth identity. They are open for public use through the official website of the project: https://inside.mruni.eu. To find out more about the INSIDE project visit the website.

INSIDE partners include: University of Bologna (Italy); University of Bordeaux (France); Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw (Poland); Babes-Bolyai University (Romania); Kaunas University of Technology (associated partner; Lithuania), Mykolas Romeris University (coordinator, Lithuania). and the Tolerant Youth Association (Lithuania).