Abstract
The 2015 NECE Conference in Thessaloniki built on the 2014 NECE Conference in Vienna, which focused on the conflicts in and around Europe. Starting point of this year's conference was the question of how to reimagine and define the role of citizenship education in increasingly divided and polarized societies.
Fundamentalist religious, ethnic and cultural perceptions of 'Us' and 'Them' play an ever more important role in the ongoing crises and upheavals in today's world. The Conference was looking into the causes and the implications of this phenomenon in four areas relevant for citizenship educators:: a) Europe's economic, social and political divisions, which have triggered discourses of fear and dissociation in core countries of the EU and have helped nationalistic and populist movements gain ground. b) The perception of an open confrontation between proclaimed values of the 'West' and the 'Islamic World' which has led to dangerous developments in societies on both sides of the Mediterranean. c) The impact of the refugee crisis on European societies in the short, medium and long term. d) The repercussions of the war in Ukraine and relations between Russia, Ukraine and the EU that have led to ideological and nationalist regression and hatred.