Intercultural Education for the Twenty-First Century: A Comparative Review of Research

Abstract

Based on the assumption that globalization should not imply homogenization, it is important for education to promote dialogue and intercultural understanding. The first appearance of the term ‘intercultural education’ in Europe dates back to 1983, when European ministers of education at a conference in Berlin, in a resolution for the schooling of migrant children, highlighted the intercultural dimension of education (Portera in Intercultural Education 19:481–491, 2008). One of the mandates of intercultural education is to promote intercultural dialogue, meaning dialogue that is “open and respectful” and that takes place between individuals or groups “with different ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds and heritage on the basis of mutual understanding and respect” (Council of Europe in White paper on intercultural dialogue: Living together as equals in dignity. Council of Europe, Strasbourg, p. 10, 2008). Such backgrounds and heritages form cultural identities, not limited to ethnic, religious and linguistic ones, as culture is a broader concept including several layers such as “experience, interest, orientation to the world, values, dispositions, sensibilities, social languages, and discourses” (Cope and Kalantzis in Pedagogies: An International Journal 4:173, 2009). As cultural identities are multi-layered, so is cultural diversity, and therefore it becomes a challenge for educators and researchers to address it (Hepple et al. in Teaching and Teacher Education 66:273–281, 2017). Referring to Leclercq (The lessons of thirty years of European co-operation for intercultural education, Steering Committee for Education, Strasbourg, 2002), Hajisoteriou and Angelides (International Journal of Inclusive Education 21:367, 2017) argue that “intercultural education aims to stress the dynamic nature of cultural diversity as an unstable mixture of sameness and otherness.” This challenge relates to the dynamic concept of culture itself, as socially constructed, and continuously shaped and reshaped through communicative interactions (Holmes et al. in Intercultural Education 26:16–30, 2015).

Four design principles for student learning of substantive historical concepts – a realistic review study

“…Students learn to distinguish similarities and differences between societies through the recurrence of the same historical concepts. This constitutes essential knowledge to reason about change and continuity (Van Drie and Van Boxtel, 2004), or to reflect on interculturality (Rapanta and Trovão, 2021). A well-designed history curriculum, therefore, builds on a set of context-independent concepts that can be applied to different societies or in different periods (for example, governance, territory, trade, prosperity).…”

Psychosocial Integration Of Foreign Students Within The Faculty Of Dental Medicine In Craiova

“…The distributed questionnaire was created following a literature study aimed at this topic of the psycho-pedagogical aspects of intercultural education (Rapanta & Trovão, 2021;Amery et al 2022;Gong et al 2022;He et al 2023;Hackett et al 2023).…”

Assessing Global Competence Within Teacher Education Programs. How to Design and Create a Set of Rubrics With a Modified Delphi Method

“…The organizational issues indicated that global competence should be combined in an explicit way within different areas of a teacher education program, appointing specific teacher educators to develop those features. The educational issues expressed and revealed the diverse aspects of global competence: citizenship education (González-Valencia et al, 2022; Mulder, 2021); intercultural citizenship (Wagner & Byram, 2017); cultural and intercultural relationships (Owusu-Agyeman, 2022); communication and cooperation (Awada & Gutiérrez-Colón, 2019); acceptance of diversity (Rapanta & Trovão, 2021); self-reflection and understanding (Murray-García et al, 2005); sustainability and well-being (Sorkos & Hajisoteriou, 2021).…”