The SMILE project addresses two emerging needs. The first need reflects the challenges within a Europe of equal opportunities for all, in which inclusion of all people how different they might be is matter of equal human rights. The second need stresses new educational challenges for a Europe as a knowledge-based society.

1.The debate on Europe was and will, especially after the formulated ´Lisbon Strategy´, not only determine the agenda’s of governments, parliaments and political parties, but also of  teacher training institutes and schools. Europe has become a condition of life, in which we all have to play a role as European citizens. This goes also for the deaf Europeans, who according to the different representative organisations (EUD, EFSLI, WFD and national associations of the deaf) have the same equal rights. Europe in this respect is also the discussion about the relationship between hearing and deaf culture, bicultural identity and the role of national sign languages. Bringing deaf and hearing pupils in schools together with student teachers and interpreters will stimulate and empower all to understand the visible signs, attached meanings and personal identification processes which constitute theirs perceptions of what Europe is or should be.

2. In this multicultural or diverse Europe, the discussion about Lifelong Learning and teachers´ competences show that good teaching needs good teachers who are able to research the educational contexts in which they work and in which increasingly pupils become involved as independent and critical learners. To know what it means to research educational contexts and especially with respect to schools in which deaf pupils are included, the project will provide solutions for an inclusion of research methodologies and intercultural practices at home and abroad within the curricula of teacher training.

The general aims of the project are to identify:

§        the main features of deaf culture in relation to hearing culture (national and European) based on  

       perceptions of deaf and hearing pupils and students;

§        the role of sign language within cultural identification processes;

§        quality standards for researching Deaf identification processes in schools in Europe.