Ildiko Barna
Teaching about and against Hate in a Challenging Environment in Hungary: A Case Study
Povzetek
Poučevanje o sovraštvu in proti njemu na Madžarskem: študija primera
V sodelovanju z Action and Protection Foundation sta pravnik Krištof Bodo in avtorica besedila leta 2014 organizirala program predavanj z naslovom Ozadje in družbene posledice zločinov iz sovraštva, ki je potekal na Fakulteti za pravo, javno upravo in vojaške vede Univerze za javno upravo v Budimpešti. Priložnost je bila izjemna, saj je poučevanje o zločinih iz sovraštva na Madžarskem redko, še zlasti znotraj institucij. Tovrstna predavanja so pomembna predvsem za tiste univerzitetne programe, katerih študentje se bodo v svojih prihodnjih poklicih srečevali s predstavniki manjšin, vprašanji človekovih pravic in morebitnimi zločini iz sovraštva. Vsi študentje so prihajali iz takih programov. Osrednji namen članka je predstaviti ta pilotni program. Avtorica najprej predstavi pedagoški in družbeni kontekst, nato pa predsodke, ki so razširjeni v madžarski družbi. V prve delu postavi tečaj v kontekst izobraževanja o človekovih pravicah, pri čemer uporabi koncept in tipologijo čustvene pedagogike. Obenem predstavi tudi predsodke do najranljivejših manjšin in opiše zločine in incidente iz sovraštva, ki so se zgodili na Madžarskem. Po predstavitvi konteksta v članku opiše celoten proces od načrtovanja kurikuluma do realizacije programa, skupaj z izkušnjami in izzivi. Po evalvaciji projekta predstavi še nekatere izzive za prihodnost.
Ključne besede: izobraževanje za človekove pravice, čustvena pedagogika, participatorno učenje, interaktivna pedagogika, zločin iz sovraštva, Madžarska
Ildiko Barna je izredna profesorica na Fakulteti za družbene vede in vodja Oddelka za motodologijo družboslovnega raziskovanja Univerze Eotvos Lorand (ELTE) v Budimpešti. (barnaildiko@tatk.elte.hu)
Abstract
In 2014, in cooperation with the Action and Protection Foundation, Kristóf Bodó, a practicing lawyer, and I had the opportunity to teach a course titled The Background and Social Consequences of Hate Crimes at the University of Public Service for students in the Faculty of Law Enforcement, Public Administration, and Military Sciences. The opportunity was exceptional indeed, since teaching about hate crimes in Hungary is rarely present, especially not in an institutional environment. However, this would be generally important, especially in university programmes where students are likely to encounter minority group members, human rights issues, and possible hate crimes in their future profession. All the students of the course belong to this group. The main aim of this article is to present this pilot course. To achieve this goal, I describe the pedagogical context first, then the social context and the prejudices present in Hungarian society. The aim of the first section is to place the course described within the context of human rights education using the concept and a typology of affective education. In talking about the latter, the trends of prejudice against the most vulnerable minorities are presented, and hate crimes and incidents committed in Hungary are also described. After introducing the context, the article presents the whole process from planning the curriculum to the realization of the course with all its experiences and challenges. After evaluating the experience some future prospects are presented. Keywords: human rights education, affective education, participatory learning, interactive pedagogy, hate crime, Hungary
Ildikó Barna is an Associate Professor at Eótvós Loránd University (ELTE) Faculty of Social Sciences (Budapest, Hungary) where she also serves as the head of the Department for Social Research Methodology. She also works as a research director of the Action and Protection Foundation. (barnaildiko@tatk.elte.hu)
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Introduction
Teaching against hate is very important in our society at all levels. In 2014, in cooperation with the Action and Protection Foundation, Kristóf Bodó, a practicing lawyer, and I had the opportunity to teach a course titled The Background and Social Consequences of Hate Crimes at the University of Public Service for students in the Faculty of Law Enforcement, Public Administration, and Military Sciences.
The Action and Protection Foundation is a registered civil organization founded in 2012. It seeks to provide a new alternative to the ineffectual legal steps taken against deteriorating standards of public discourse, exclusion, and the ignorance in which anti-Semitism is rooted. Furthermore, the organization fights against atrocities and hate crimes, taking up a strategy of positive Jewish identity building and community self-organization.
The opportunity was exceptional indeed, since teaching about hate crimes in Hungary is rarely present, especially not in an institutional environment. However, this would be generally important, especially in university programmes where students are likely to encounter minority group members, human rights issues, and possible hate crimes in their future profession.
Surveys on police and minority relations were done only in connection with the Roma, but they showed serious problems. Just to mention a few examples: while 15 percent of majority citizens living in the same area were stopped by police in the last twelve months, the percentage among the Roma was 41 percent. Moreover, Roma people in Hungary reported much more often that they were treated disrespectfully by police officers. These experiences also have severe consequences for the level of trust in the police. While 62 percent of majority Hungarians trust the police and 22 percent of them do not, the percentages for the Roma are 28 and 51 percent, respectively (FRA, 2010). This also has a great impact in relation to hate crimes. Low trust in the police forces results in the latency of hate-motivated crimes and incidents.
With these facts in mind, the Faculty of Law Enforcement identified the need to include such a course in the curriculum. The Faculty's commitment to the issue is also shown by the fact that they participated in the EU-financed COREPOL research project, which aimed at identifying ways to improve police and minority relations in the context of European democratic policing.1 The COREPOL project also envisioned the inclusion of its findings into BA and MA curricula.
Based on this evidence the Faculty of Law Enforcement started to plan the introduction of an elective course on hate crimes into its BA program. The course presented in this article served as a pilot course for this purpose. They also believed that cooperation with an NGO that has the interdisciplinary expertise on this field would be fruitful. Our task was to plan an unprecedented course in Hungary, and to do it in a very challenging environment. In the process of developing the curriculum we aimed to deal with several issues. Why is this course needed? What are the planned learning outcomes of the course? What pedagogical approach should we use to attain them?
The aim of this article is to present the whole process from planning the curriculum to the realization of the course with all its experiences and challenges. However, in order to achieve this goal, it is first important to place the course into a social and pedagogical context.
Pedagogical context: human rights education
Article 26 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms." (UN, 1948) It is also important that by declaring
1 The Hungarian research team was led by Andrea Kozary.
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in the very same article the universal right to education the UDHR created "a normative link" between the right to, and the goal of, education (Andreopoulos, 2002: 240). After the first UN World Conference on Human Rights, which took place in 1993 in Vienna, the General Assembly of the United Nations reaffirmed at the end of 1994 the article proclaiming the ten-year period starting in 1995 as a Decade of Human Rights Education.
Although it served as a great impetus, and educational programmes in this field have expanded, other factors have also played an important role. Ramírez and his colleagues argue that "the rise of human rights education is linked closely to the process of globalization" (Ramírez et al., 2007: 36). This process has many impacts. In this new globalized world the emphasis is less on citizens of nation states, but rather on human beings of the world, which resulted in the shift of interest from citizen rights to human rights. The expansion of education also played an important role. This is reflected by the diversity of social groups involved in general education, the wider range of topics covered in the curricula and also the inclusion of new educational goals. "Naturally as human rights become an important social domain in world and national society, we expect that education systems incorporate human rights in their curricula." (ibid.: 39)
In recent decades many programmes concerning human rights education have emerged. Tibbitts (2002) introduces three different models of contemporary human rights education. The first, called the values and awareness model, is a philosophical approach targeted mostly at the general public and schools. In this model "the main focus of human rights education is to transmit basic knowledge of human rights issues and to foster its integration into public values" (Tibbitts, 2002: 163). There is a wide variety of programmes falling into this category, ranging from educational projects using creative means to attract the interest of the learners to more lecture-oriented programmes. This model emphasizes the acquisition of new knowledge rather than the development of skills. However, these programmes can be successful in enhancing critical thinking, which is essential for the promotion of human rights. (ibid.: 164).
The second is the accountability model, which is a legal-political approach targeted at professionals who are engaged in protecting individuals' and groups' human rights. This approach "focuses on the ways in which their professional responsibilities involve either (a) directly monitoring human rights violations and advocating with the necessary authorities; or (b) taking special care to protect the rights of people (especially vulnerable populations) [...]" (Tibbitts, 2002: 165). This model equally involves knowledge acquisition, as well as developing skills. Since the existing openness to human rights related issues is presupposed due to the profession of the learners, programmes falling into this category are not aiming especially at personal change. The focus is much more on the society level, including norms, practices, and legal means enhancing social change.
The third type is the transformation model, a psychological-sociological approach targeting both individuals and groups. The common audiences include vulnerable populations, victims of abuse and trauma, and post-conflict societies; therefore this model presupposes that the participants have personal experience concerning human rights violations. This approach aims mainly at empowering the participants to recognize their human rights, become capable of identifying the abuses and work for their prevention. (Tibbitts, 2002: 166-167)
Affective education and its connection to human rights education
Education can and should have functions beyond promoting academic knowledge. As Lang points out, "pupils can be people too" (Lang, 1998: 3), meaning that they also have attitudes, beliefs, emotions and feelings, and if these are also addressed, the academic side of the educational process can be more effective, too. This is the field of affective education, defined by Lang as "a significant dimension of the educational process which is concerned with the
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feelings, beliefs, attitudes and emotions of students, with their interpersonal relationships and social skills." (Lang, 1998: 4)
Lang identifies three levels of affective education: the individual, the group and the institutional level. On the first level attention is directed to individual students, working with their attitudes and emotions, but also focusing on their further plans in life. On the second level the nature and quality of interactions in the group in question are in the focus. The third level concerns the climate and the ethos of the institution where the education takes place. If these levels are combined, different goals become achievable both in shorter and longer terms.
Hung (2014) proposes the use of affective pedagogy in human rights education (Affective Pedagogy of Human Rights Education, APHRE), since "students' feelings and understanding could be evoked not only through acquiring human rights related knowledge, but also through seeing the sorrowful faces of those whose rights have been violated" (Hung, 2014: 50). She argues that "[t]he development of APHRE aims to improve human rights education by linking learners' bodily, affective, and perceptual experience with human rights events and stories." (Hung, 2014: 62)
Lang (1998: 9) mentions Hungary as "an example of a well-developed philosophy corresponding to [the] notion of affective education". At that time the statutory curriculum in effect (Nemzeti Alaptanterv, NAT) defined only the frame of education, and broke with the previous central regulations which defined, down to class level, the syllabus and content of education and the specific educational and ideological targets of pedagogical activity in schools. The new regulations gave extensive freedom to schools to develop their own specific curriculum and also to implement educational innovations. The statutory curriculum put special emphasis on democratic values generally, and on European values specifically. In 2012 a new statutory curriculum came into force, which reintroduced centralized education and schooling. Although the development areas and educational targets continue to include, for instance, the instruction of citizenship and democracy, the development of self-knowledge and social culture, and taking responsibility for others and volunteering, the strict and overly detailed definition of the curricula heavily restricts the educational institutions in choosing their schooling methods, as well as the content and ideology of the education they provide.
Social context: prejudices in Hungarian society
Several sociological surveys and studies prove that Hungarian society is widely affected by prejudices, with the most exposed minority groups being the Roma, the Jews, migrants and the LGBTQ community. The Roma are the biggest minority group living in Hungary: their estimated number is around 550-600,000. Prejudice is strongest against the Roma, and its prevalence has been quite stable in the past two decades; Anti-Roma sentiments are also expressed openly. In 2011, 60 percent agreed with the statement that "the inclination to criminality is in the blood of Gypsies" and 42 percent considered that "it is only right that there are still pubs, clubs and discos where Gypsies are not let in" (Bernat et al., 2012). As is discussed later, this widely accepted anti-Roma attitude was one reason for the success of the Hungarian far-right movement.
There are an estimated 80-120,000 Jews living in Hungary, a number that makes it the biggest Jewish community in Central-Eastern Europe. In contrast to the Roma, they are viewed as assimilated and integrated into Hungarian society (Kovacs, 2010). In 2013, a survey was conducted, commissioned by the Action and Protection Foundation, on the prevalence of anti-Semitism. According to this research 15-20 percent of the Hungarian adult population can be classified as extremely anti-Semitic, 15-18 percent as moderately anti-Semitic, and approximately two-thirds of the society is free of anti-Semitic prejudices (Brussels Institute, 2014). However, latent anti-Semitism is also quite high: the proportion of latent anti-Semites can reach up to 10 percent (Kovacs, 2011: 91). A study in 2013 also measured the prevalence
Ildiko Barna i Poučevanje o sovraštvu in proti njemu na Madžarskem: študija primera
of Holocaust denial and relativization. The survey revealed that 8 percent of respondents can be considered Holocaust deniers since they at least somewhat agree with the statement that there were no gas chambers in the concentration camps. Nineteen percent of respondents relativize the Holocaust by saying that the number of Jewish victims was far lower than is usually claimed (Brussels Institute, 2014).
The number of migrants is far less in Hungary than in countries in Western Europe. Foreign citizens make up only 2 percent of the total population living in Hungary. This is the reason why, in contrast to Western European countries, the far-right movement in Hungary focuses on the Jews and especially the Roma rather than migrants. Despite the low number of migrants, prejudices against them are strong. A survey carried out in 2012 found that 40 percent of the Hungarian population had strong prejudices against migrants, agreeing with the statement that "no asylum-seeker should ever set foot in here". Most of those who would consider admitting an asylum seeker would accept only ethnic Hungarians from neighbouring countries. (Simonovits and Szalai, 2013).
Lastly, a representative survey, conducted in 2010, showed that 21 percent of the Hungarian population is extremely homophobic. Another survey, carried out in the same year, revealed that two-thirds of Hungarians would not accept a homosexual person as a close friend and almost half of them would reject them as a neighbour (Takács, 2011).
The "demand and supply" sides of prejudices
It is also important, however, to approach this problem on the level of the society. The existing demand of and supply for the extreme right make the situation even more compelling. The demand side of the extreme right wing can be well captured by the Demand for Right-Wing Extremism (DEREX) index developed by the Political Capital Institute. This index consists of twenty-nine items measuring people's predisposition to far right-wing politics. Since it is based on data from the European Social Survey, it enables comparison both in time and in space. The proportion of right-wing extremists more than doubled from 10 percent in 2003 to 21 percent in 2009, but later decreased to a 12 percent level in 2013. In an international comparison it can be clearly seen that the Western and the Eastern part of the European Union are sharply separated, with the latter having a considerably higher proportion of people open to right-wing ideology. Among the post-socialist EU member states, Hungary took second place after Bulgaria (Political Capital, 2010).
A study by Kreko et al. (2011) suggests that a strong popular demand for the extreme right does not necessarily result in a strong far-right movement. Even so, this demand must be a necessary condition for the supply, since there needs to be a great number of people who would resonate with the main topics of such movements (e.g., prejudices, anti-establishment attitudes, ethnocentrism). They mention other important factors that can lead to the emergence of a far-right party, such as "political traditions, facing one's past, institutional barriers, the efficiency of political strategies against the far right, the structure of the political force field, and the organizational force and political efficiency of the extreme right" (Kreko et al., 2011: 55-56).
Far-right movements appeared right after the fall of communism, but in the first few years remained on the very margin of the political spectrum. The first far-right party, the Magyar Igazsag es Elet Partja (MIEP, Party of Hungarian Justice and Life), was founded in 1993. While in 1994 it won only 1.6 percent of the vote, which was far below the 5 percent electoral threshold, in 1998 it got 5.5 percent and 14 seats in the Hungarian Parliament. In 2002 the party lost its parliamentary representation with a result of 4.4 percent.
The supply side of this prejudiced thinking was greatly influenced by the emergence and growth of the neo-Nazi Jobbik (the Movement for a Better Hungary) party that was founded in 2003. In the parliamentary elections of 2006, in alliance with MIEP, the Movement for a
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Better Hungary won only 2.2 percent of the vote. After this failure, Jobbik broke up the alliance and it started to find its own voice. The growing impact of the party became clear in the 2009 European parliamentary elections, where Jobbik won almost 15 percent of the vote and could send three members to the European Parliament. In the 2010 national parliamentary election the party got 17 percent of the votes. These results unequivocally indicated the enormous growth of the acceptance of radical right-wing thought in Hungarian society. By 2014, the support of Jobbik grew further and the party secured 20 percent of the vote in the recent national elections.
Hate crimes
According to the definition by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a hate crime is a crime defined by the criminal code, motivated by prejudice against a certain group of people. Hate-motivated incidents are also offences based on prejudice against a certain group of people, but not reaching the level of criminal conduct (OSCE/ODIHR, 2009b). To understand the very nature of hate crime we cannot settle for this institutional definition. A sociological definition of hate crime, however, yields a number of aspects to consider. First, hate crime is relative: it changes from time to time, from culture to culture. Second, these crimes are contextually defined; they do not occur in a "vacuum". Third, their remnants stay within the society even when the crimes are over. Based on all these aspects, Barbara Perry states that "we must define hate crime [...] as a socially situated, dynamic process involving context and actors, structure and agency." (Perry, 2001: 9) Perry, after analyzing many definitions of hate crimes, constructs her working definition as follows: "Hate crime is a mechanism of power intended to sustain somewhat precarious hierarchies, through violence and threats of violence (verbal or physical). It is generally directed toward those whom our society has traditionally stigmatized and marginalized." (Perry, 2001: 9) This definition provides an explanation for many distinguishing aspects of hate crimes.
These crimes may be considered messages, thus their effects reach far beyond that of other crimes and can be captured on different levels, that of the individual, the group attacked, and of society as a whole. The victims may suffer greater psychological and emotional trauma. In the case of these crimes, not "only" the property or physical integrity of victims is endangered, but also their self-respect. These offences question the right of the individual to equality, even to belonging to society itself. It is important that in such crimes victims are targeted because of some unchangeable characteristic, and for this reason may well feel even more defenceless. Victims are often afraid that they may again become victims of further atrocities. Inappropriate handling of such incidents can easily lead to secondary victimization of the targeted person. This type of criminal act also has a strong effect on the group to which the victim belongs. Victims of such crimes are often interchangeable, because in most cases the attack does not target a certain individual, but rather anyone who is, or is perceived to be, a member of the group under attack. Therefore other members of the group also become emotionally involved, and are frightened of becoming the target of such prejudice-motivated crimes. This is especially true for groups that have been exposed to prejudice for a long time. These crimes violate the norm that holds the members of society equal. Inadequate handling of such incidents can have grave consequences for the whole society. It may, on the one hand, encourage the perpetrators or even others to commit further crimes. On the other hand, it significantly diminishes the cohesive power of society (Atol et al., 2013; Barna, 2014; Levin and McDevitt, 1999; OSCE/ ODIHR, 2009a; 2009b; Perry, 2001; Utasi, 2011).
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Hate crimes in Hungary
The Athena Institute registered 121 hate crimes between 2009 and 2012. The number of hate crimes has somewhat decreased in this period: while 36 such incidents were registered in 2009, 25 were recorded in 2012. In every year most of the crimes were motivated by racism, and overwhelmingly by anti-Roma prejudices; however, the proportion of these crimes is decreasing somewhat. Meanwhile, crimes motivated by anti-Semitism have increased (Athena Institute, 2012).
Since May 2013, anti-Semitic hate crimes, as well as hate-motivated incidents, have been monitored by the Action and Protection Foundation. As of April 2014, we have registered 57 such cases. In this period the number of anti-Semitic hate incidents decreased. Sixty-seven percent of all hate crimes and incidents involved hate speech, 18 percent were damage to property, 9 percent involved assault, and 7 percent involved threats. One-third of all registered hate crimes and incidents (eighteen cases) were organized: of these, seven were directly connected to Jobbik (Barna, 2014).
The case described
In 2014, as the research director and educator of the Action and Protection Foundation, I was commissioned to develop a curriculum for a course titled The Background and Social Consequences of Hate Crimes to be taught at the National University of Public Service. Since we knew that this is a pilot course in this institutional environment, it was important to map why this course was needed, and therefore what should be in the focus of our program. As in all courses we had to define the learning outcomes provided by the course and the means to achieve them. After answering these questions we could make decisions regarding the course material.
The need for the course
As previously discussed, a high proportion of Hungarian society is prejudiced. Therefore, we could hardly assume that all of the students in the class were devoid of those same prejudices. Research also reveals strong discrimination in the police force, especially against the Roma.2 Police officers have another very important role in connection to hate crimes: it is their responsibility to classify crimes properly. Hate crimes reach beyond the crimes themselves, therefore "if the victim does not experience the same public service that is equally available for everybody, but the inappropriate treatment of the authorities, or in an even worse case must suffer discrimination, then the victim's fears will further intensify, and he/she will feel betrayed by the entire democratic institutional system." (Uszkiewicz, 2013: 39)
Those working in public administration are the representatives of the state; their attitudes, actions and the measures they take have a direct and long-lasting effect not only on individuals' lives, but also on their trust in the system of institutions, and therefore indirectly on social cohesion and the fabric of the society. Many times members of certain minority groups have additional disadvantages, which make it even more difficult for them to stand up for their rights. In these instances the attitudes of those working in the police force or public administration
2 For example in 2008 and 2009, a group of right-wing extremists committed a series of attacks against Roma people in different villages. They killed six people, including a five-year old boy, and seriously injured several others. Four men were accused by the state of committing the attacks with racist motivation. The trial, which took place in 2012-2013, shed light on the serious mistakes made by different actors at all levels, especially in the detection and investigation of the crime. It can be assumed that some of these errors occurred because the actors were biased by prejudices.
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are of utmost importance. Taking into account all these aspects, the importance of this course was unquestionable.
Planned learning outcome
Planning learning outcomes were focused on two levels: cognitive and emotive. On the cognitive level we introduced students to the social-psychological and sociological background of prejudices. We wanted them to understand how they are likely to motivate hate crimes, why these crimes are different from any other and why they are especially dangerous for the society. We also wanted to familiarize them with the legal environment and possibilities in Hungary to fight against these crimes. It was also important to draw their attention to the place and importance of human rights and their protection in the students' future profession. Using Tibbitts's (2002) typology mentioned before, the course was an amalgam of the values and awareness, and the accountability model.
On the other hand we also aimed at emotive outcomes. It was very important that the main aim of the course was not just to enhance academic knowledge, to make the students not only understand where hate crimes come from and what their consequences are, but also to raise their awareness. To achieve this goal we had to work with their feelings and attitudes. Since we dealt with sensitive topics, there was more emphasis on "feeling", "experiencing", and "sympathizing" than on "knowing", however working on the level of emotions also enhances actual knowledge.
Participants and institutional setting
Participants were recruited from Colleges for Advanced Studies, whose members are traditionally more motivated and talented than the average. These colleges embraced all three faculties of the university,3 but participants of our course came mostly from the faculties of Law Enforcement and Public Administration.
Although general institutional support was provided by inviting us to develop and teach this course, the need for these "social" courses is not unanimously acknowledged by the educators at the university. It had two consequences. On the one hand, it happened that our course was neglected when extra compulsory activities were organized for students. It is also important that because of their fields of study many of our participants were already members of the armed forces, therefore in such cases they obeyed orders. On the other hand, the benefits of taking such a course were not so obvious for the students. Therefore, it was also very important to demonstrate to them why this course is relevant, and how the knowledge gained is useable. At the very beginning of the course we talked over their motivations for taking the course. This was mainly pure interest, but they could hardy connect it to their future profession. Therefore, we talked over different situations where they can meet issues involving minorities, prejudices, and crimes motivated by bias. We also discussed what effects their attitudes can have on the outcome.
It has already been noted that many of our students were used to very strong hierarchical relations at the university. In this environment it was very useful that we came from "outside". In this way it was easier for them to accept that we are dealing with topics they are not used to, and it enhanced open and honest discussions as well.
3 The university then consisted of three faculties. In 2015 the Faculty of International and European Studies came into existence.
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Pedagogical approach
As mentioned earlier we wanted to address learning outcomes on two levels. The real challenge was not to attain the cognitive outcome, but the emotive one. For this purpose the use of affective pedagogy was essential, working with the participants' attitudes, emotions, feelings, experiences, even prejudices. Only with the use of this "bottom-up approach" could "top-down sermonizing" be avoided, as Andreopoulos identifies it as "a common mistake that has in the past plagued training exercises geared towards the law enforcement constituency" (Andreopoulos, 2002: 243). Based on my previous experience as an educator I found the use of personal testimonies of victims also necessary. In this way cognitive knowledge can be filled in with real emotions.
These students, similarly to many more in Hungary, are in an educational environment where this affective approach is rarely used. To make them feel comfortable with this new way of learning, two other interrelated pedagogical approaches were used: participatory learning and interactive pedagogy. "The participatory approach is viewed as motivating, humanizing and ultimately practical, since this form of learning is linked more strongly with attitudinal or behavioural change than with a pure lecturing approach." (Tibbitts, 2002: 162) Participation in the course could only be achieved through intense interactions. This was further reinforced by the spatial rearrangement, placing the chairs in a circle and avoiding frontal education.
The introductory lecture was very important for establishing a connection among the students and was also the best opportunity to incorporate us as educators into the group. Psycho-drama techniques could be well applied for this purpose. Since the students came from various departments, many of them did not know each other. This was an advantage for us, as it was not only us who were unknown to the whole group. To assist the process of getting acquainted and to form the group, psychodrama techniques were applied. First we asked students to form groups according to very different aspects: for example, those who are tired and those who are not; those planning an MA and those applying for a job after finishing their BA studies. Students were also asked if they were interested in other types of partition. After this, students who had not known each other before formed pairs. They talked to one another about themselves, sharing all the information they felt important, and then stood behind each other one after another and introduced the other one. The first lesson had outstanding significance from another aspect as well: we had to create an "atmosphere of trust". I am convinced that courses dealing with similar topics should be committed to providing a forum for students to openly talk about their feelings, even if their feelings are tainted by prejudices. If students are humiliated in these situations the course can create a countereffect, and prejudices can deepen. Everyone who teaches knows that "losing students" can happen in a minute, and that to restore their interest and co-operation can take much more time. In the first lesson there were dangerous situations in the sense of group dynamics when we were on a knife's edge, but by the end of the lesson we felt that we had established an atmosphere of trust. This was strengthened by a virtual contract among participants, stating that they function as a closed group with the obligation of privacy.
Course material
The course was planned to be an interdisciplinary one, since not only I as a sociologist participated in its implementation, but also Kristof Bodo, a practicing lawyer, expert in the legislation of hate crimes, and also well experienced in legal cases concerning these crimes.
In the first lesson the theory of social identity, stereotypes, and prejudices were introduced and different exercises were used to empirically demonstrate these constructions. First they were asked to give examples for their social identities. For the next exercise we wrote different attributes (e.g. pessimistic, loud, coffee-lover, romantic, passionate or religious) and different nationalities on small slips of paper. Participants were asked to pair them, which helped to comprehend the meaning of stereotypes. Later on, talking also about the stereotypes of their own
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social groups, the difference between auto- and heterostereotypes was clarified. Then we collected the groups that face most prejudices in Hungary and differentiated between stereotypes and prejudices. Later, factors stimulating prejudice and motives behind hate crimes were addressed.
Starting in the second lesson, we combined an approach based on personal contacts with victims of prejudices with the introduction to the legal background of hate crimes. Hungarian criminal legislation identifies two forms of hate crime: violent offences committed against a member of a group and incitement to hatred of a community. Apart from these, the Criminal Code also describes the denial of crimes of the National Socialist and Communist regimes as an offence. Furthermore it bans the distribution and use or public display of the symbols of various autocratic regimes (among them the swastika, the arrow-cross, the five-pointed red star, and the hammer and sickle). In the first part of these lessons, students met young people from the Jewish and the Roma community who experienced hate speech or incitement against their communities, as well as victims of the Holocaust and those of Communism. Course participants had the opportunity to talk to these individuals and ask questions. It was interesting to see how much they were affected by the stories of the victims and in many cases they clearly gave voice to their surprise stating that they "did not think that this or that could happen."
In the second part of these lessons, Kristof Bodo introduced the legal background. In this section, emphasis was placed on the understanding of the laws' main points and purposes, and not on the more abstract aspect of legal education. At the end of these lessons, interactive tests were filled out which helped students decide whether an act was against the law or not, and also to experience that sometimes there is a very fine line between the two. In doing so, students were effectively encouraged to thoughtfully engage with the binary judgement that these actions receive, whilst maintaining the complexity of the intellectual decision-making process.
Evaluation and future prospects
The course was a pilot one, full of new experiences. Because of the novelty of the course in this institutional environment we felt it was even more compelling to attract students in the first place. Looking back on the course, I think that it resulted in a certain unbalance in the attainment of the cognitive versus the emotive outcome. The academic knowledge was transmitted to the students more directly, while we worked together on attitudes and feelings. In a future course I would find it important to place greater emphasis on dealing with the literature together, and to ground their academic knowledge more.
The use of affective pedagogy, participatory learning and interactive pedagogy proved to be very successful. Even though these students were normally not used to these pedagogical methods, they seemed to be very comfortable in the new situation. However, there was a certain imbalance in how different students got involved in conversations. In the future, this could be enhanced with more small-group activities and discussions.
Since it was elective and only students of the College for Advanced Studies were invited, its effectiveness was not measured by formal means. There was, however, some very positive, informal feedback regarding the course. Some other lecturers at the university reported that participants of the course indicated their wish to talk about the course to their classmates, and there were students who chose hate crimes as the topic of their thesis after taking the course.
Conclusions
This article aimed at presenting the development and implementation of the course titled The Background and Social Consequences of Hate Crimes at the University of Public Service for students in the Faculty of Law Enforcement, Public Administration, and Military Sciences. The prevalence of prejudices in Hungary clearly shows the need for such a course, especially if
Ildiko Barna i Poučevanje o sovraštvu in proti njemu na Madžarskem: študija primera
we take into account that students of these faculties will most probably be in situations during their future career when their attitudes toward minorities and their knowledge of hate crimes are of utmost importance.
According to the typology proposed by Tibbitts (2002), the course was a mixture of the values and awareness and the accountability model. It focused on transmitting basic knowledge of human right issues, while it also targeted professionals. Furthermore, the means of affective education were utilized during the course. It was important to focus not only on academic knowledge, but also to "work with" the feelings, attitudes, even prejudices of the participants. Two of the three levels of affective education identified by Lang (1998) were addressed. On the micro-level of the students, their emotions were activated by using personal testimonies of victims. Moreover, the atmosphere of trust created let them talk openly about their feelings even tainted by prejudices. On the meso-level of the group, strong emphasis was placed on creating a "real group" with the help of psycho-drama techniques mobilizing group dynamics. The macro level of the institution, however, fell beyond our reach, although the positive reception of the course may lead the university to offer this seminar as an elective course in their BA programmes in the coming academic years.
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