Establishing A Culture Of Intercultural Education

Given the current era of global turmoil and strained relations between peoples of diverse national and cultural origins, there has never been a greater need for intercultural education than there is today. This edited volume is in honour of Jagdish Gundara, a renowned pioneer in the field, and brings together contributions from experienced educators and researchers who focus on problematic aspects of intercultural education, as well as on crucial issues related to different regional contexts. Contributors draw upon national, comparative and international perspectives, in addition to theoretical and empirical studies, to inform thinking and discussion in relation to innovative policies and pedagogies. The content of the book will be found to be both challenging and stimulating. Accordingly, it will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers, as well as educators and policy-makers both nationally and across the globe. As such, the volume reflects an endeavour to establish intercultural education as a fundamental aspect of educational discourse in general.

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What kind of cultural encounters enhance cultural awareness and intercultural competence in educational contexts? This volume highlights the potential of different types of (inter)cultural encounters for intercultural learning and developing critical (cultural) awareness in education. The book's articles explore the potential of critical reading of classical and other culturally relevant texts, as well as physical or virtual encounters with people from other cultures as part of course activities for the development of intercultural competence. (Series: Intercultural Education / Interkulturelle Padagogik - Vol. 13) [Subject: Education, Cultural Studies]

Many different words are used to deal with diversity in education, such as cross-cultural, meta-cultural, polycultural, multicultural and intercultural, as well as terms like global and international. Some are trendier than others, some more political. Some of these words are used in certain parts of the world, while others are rejected. This volume concentrates on the notion of the ‘intercultural’ and makes sense of its polysemy in education. As such, in research and practice, my intercultural may not mean the same as your intercultural. My intercultural might have different values and ideologies than your intercultural. The contributors also propose considerations on how to make the most of ‘renewed’, critical and reflexive approaches to intercultural education in a breadth of contexts and countries, including Argentina, Australia, France, Iceland, Tunisia and the UK. The book will appeal to students and teachers, as well as to confirmed researchers who will gain inspiration and new insights into the increasingly contested notion of the ‘intercultural’ in education.

Intercultural learning is an important topic for the priorities of both the European Commission and the Council of Europe, and of their partnership in the field of youth. Intercultural learning is an educational approach that can lead to social transformation, so that people from different cultural backgrounds can develop positive relations based on the values and principles of human rights and on seeing cultural differences as positive things. It is a form of political and social education that needs to pay attention not only to intercultural relations, but also to different understandings of culture and diversity, power relations, distribution of resources, political and social context, human rights, discrimination, history and daily interactions among different groups. This T-Kit was developed for the context of youth work and non-formal education with young people, both of which support the personal development, social integration and active citizenship of young people. Educators and youth workers have an important role in addressing intercultural learning in their work with young people. They can stimulate young people’s learning in their daily lives, so that they can question and extend their perception, develop competences to interact positively with people from different cultural backgrounds and embrace the values of diversity, equality and dignity. In today’s Europe, these values and skills are fundamental for young people and for society as a whole in order to continue building peace and mutual understanding.

The ability to recognise and understand your own cultural context is a prerequisite to understanding and interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds. An intercultural learning approach encourages us to develop an understanding of culture and cultural difference, through reflecting on our own context and experience.

A central purpose of this book is to question the claims commonly made about the educational benefits of study abroad. Traditional metrics of enrollment increases and student self-report, and practices of structural immersion, are being questioned as educators voice growing uncertainty about what students are or are not in fact learning abroad. This book looks into whether these criticisms are justified—and what can be done if they are.The contributors to this book offer a counter-narrative to common views that learning takes place simply through students studying elsewhere, or through their enrolling in programs that take steps structurally to “immerse” them in the experience abroad.Student Learning Abroad reviews the dominant paradigms of study abroad; marshals rigorous research findings, with emphasis on recent studies that offer convincing evidence about what undergraduates are or are not learning; brings to bear the latest knowledge about human learning and development that raises questions about the very foundations of current theory and practice; and presents six examples of study abroad courses or programs whose interventions apply this knowledge. This book provokes readers to reconsider long-held assumptions, beliefs and practices about teaching and learning in study abroad and to reexamine the design and delivery of their programs. In doing so, it provides a new foundation for responding to the question that may faculty and staff are now asking: What do I need to know, and what do I need to be able to do, to help my students learn and develop more effectively abroad? Contributors:Laura BathurstMilton BennettGabriele Weber BosleyJohn EngleLilli Engle Tara HarveyMitchell HammerDavid KolbBruce La Brack Kris Hemming LouKate McClearyCatherine MenyhartR. Michael PaigeAngela PassarelliAdriana Medina-López PortilloMeghan QuinnJennifer Meta RobinsonRiikka SalonenVictor SavickiDouglas StuartMichael Vande BergJames ZullWhile the authors who have contributed to Student Learning Abroad are all known for their work in advancing the field of education abroad, a number have recently been honored by leading international education associations. Bruce La Brack received NAFSA’s 2012 Teaching, Learning and Scholarship Award for Innovative Research and Scholarship. Michael Paige (2007) and Michael Vande Berg (2012) are recipients of the Forum on Education Abroad’s Peter A. Wollitzer Award.

Primarily designed for use in teacher education programs, this manual provides education faculty with a resource for building multicultural education training into the teacher education curriculum. Chapter 1 defines terms basic to multicultural education, intercultural communication, and cross-cultural training. Chapter 2 discusses the theory of intercultural communication. Chapter 3 outlines the history of multicultural education and focuses on linguistic diversity. Chapter 4 contains a discussion of the multicultural curriculum and considers possibilities for infusing existing courses with multicultural perspectives. Chapter 5 studies the training of teachers for multicultural education competencies, reviews methods of teacher training, and offers specific applications of multicultural concepts in teacher education. Chapter 6 lists 30 teaching strategies drawn from the cross-cultural literature and adapted for teacher preservice and inservice training. It also details exercises for role playing, critical incidents, case studies, simulation, and group discussion. Chapter 7 presents procedures for the evaluation of cross-cultural training and education. The manual also includes a 65-item annotated bibliography and film list. (CM)

Over the last two decades drama pedagogy has helped to lay the foundations for a new teaching and learning culture, one that accentuates physicality and centres on performative experience. Signs of this ‘performative turn’ in education are especially strong in the field of foreign/second language teaching. This volume introduces scholars, language teachers, student teachers and drama practitioners to the concept of a performative foreign language didactics. Approaching the subject from a wide variety of contexts, the contributors explore the extent to which performative approaches, emphasising the role of the body as a learning medium, can achieve deep intercultural learning. Drama activities such as improvisation, hot seating and tableaux are shown to create rich opportunities for intercultural encounters that transport students beyond the parameters of conventional language, literature and culture education.

This book primarily analyses the current situation in intercultural education and intercultural competences, and addresses the challenges to, and possible ways of dealing with, different perspectives in intercultural education. Advances in the new millennium, such as the revolution in information technologies, have led to a reduction in distances between people, stronger ties between different geographical areas, and greater mobility. This volume examines how these advances seem to have given rise to profound economic, environmental, political, social, and cultural crises, not just within nations, but also in relations between cultures. Such crises are of concern to all aspects of human life, including family, work and mass media, but they particularly affect educational institutions. The papers in this collection explain, therefore, why it is necessary to invest in education.