Culture, Diversity, and Education

Abstract

Chapter I, accordingly, articulates the central thesis, that culture, constitutional characteristic of the Homo sapiens' (Lat: the wise human), mode of social organisation and human development, itself determined through mimetic arrangement, learning, meaning-making and identity-progression, provides techniques to help maintain itself as a referential, networked system by means of autopoiesis.In this regard, culture appears as something unifying. This seems to contrast strongly many common perceptions of "culture" as an expression of -for example ethnic -differences.When people travel on vacation, they visit and eventually explore the other "culture".Huntington even tries to argue that cultures could "clash", which presumes difference as well.2010 was declared, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, to be the International Year of the Rapprochement of Cultures.The text assumes that culture is organised not only into theoretically abstract, principle modes as described above, but also through the practical interpretation of these modes, denoted as "patterns". The modes define how patterns evolve. This means that the patterns are unique, societal expressions of such modes, which they express diversely. In this sense the abstract, theoretical modes of culture are practically applied in society, unfolding sociocultural diversity, (usually denotes as cultural diversity). While "culture" defines communicative, community-and meaning-making techniques, such as narration and performance, socio-cultural patterns are the expressions of particular stories, rituals, meanings, values, symbols, perceptions, etc.Socio-cultural diversity is the expression of human agility, dignity and uniqueness as an end in itself. It isn't a disturbance factor in the promoting of a global ethics of human co-habitation and sustainability. Instead socio-cultural differences are mutually stimulating. Differences evoke friction and conflict, which can contribute to the innovation of socio-cultural meanings and societal structures. Mimetic learning "allows to suspend the self and to experience as well as regard it from the perspective of the other", states Wulf (2002: 84). Current meanings, represented in lifestyles, in consumption and production patterns, in national politics and the supra-national neo-liberal market-economy, have caused complex, global challenges that are growing. The "Limits of this Growth" (Donella/Club of Rome 1972) suggest that it is necessary to access and assess development alternatives. In is in this context that sociocultural diversity becomes functional. Globalisation evokes global interdependences. These are not only economical or political (institutional), but also socio-cultural interdependences.Global challenges, such as climate change, the spread of poverty and population growth affect, at least in the long-run, all socio-cultural protagonists, all people and all societies.  Example:One can feel and hence be German and Algerian (independent of what their passport indicates). At the ...