The globalisation of fear and the construction of the intercultural imagination

Abstract

Intercultural education concerns the destruction of boundaries between people and their replacement by what Jurgen Habermas has called communicative action. It is a difficult task that raises various forms of existential fear: consciousness of individual mortality, communal insecurity, collective anxiety and distrust. In order to confront this globalisation of fear, to engage with ourselves as well as with others, the construction of what we might term the intercultural imagination is required. Intercultural education must embrace hope and the imagination, but in association with reason, understanding and knowledge. It is grounded in a capacity for critical pragmatism, an appreciation for an educational project based on a global concern for equity and justice and for the establishment of the basis of unfettered, rational communication between peoples. The construction of the intercultural imagination is a process which demands more than the attainment of the usual pedagogical competences; it requires an engagement both with hope and with fear.

La Escuela Intercultural hoy: reflexiones y perspectivas pedagógicas

“…De alguna forma, hablar de procesos educativos interculturales implica la aceptación de que la hibridación cultural atraviesa a cada estudiante de una forma singular y única, y que cada estudiante construye sus identidades desde unas formas más bien transculturales que incluso nos permiten identificar el cuestionamiento de si todavía podemos hablar de interculturalidad o interculturalidades (Bash, 2014a). Más adelante retomaremos esta idea.…”

From ambivalent spaces to spaces of reciprocal encountering: developing classroom culture in an intercultural story exchange

“…It turned out that shifting the focus from the product of learning (the stories) to the process of learning (engaging in a space for reciprocal encountering) required resisting some of the norms of traditional school culture, where the teacher controls discourses. Changing existing cultural practices may also require the teacher to engage in critical, reflexive action, as the teacher may be unintentionally upholding the very structures she is attempting to change (Bash 2014). In this study, the dual role of the teacher-researcher supported the transformation of practice, but also led to a professional transformation.…”

Desafíos y perspectivas de la educación - Tomo 2

“…A grandes rasgos, esta exclusión educativa derivada de los modelos de gestión de la diversidad que conciben la diferencia como un problema, ha solido tener como consecuencia una exclusión social (Bash, 2014;Flecha et al, 2007) y, por tanto, disponer de menos oportunidades para poder realizarse y subsistir. De este modo, es posible que aquellas medidas educativas derivadas de estos modelos, los cuales suelen fomentar el discurso de que el alumnado recién llegado o proveniente de otras culturas difícilmente podrá adquirir buenos resultados de aprendizaje y niveles aceptables de desempeño de las competencias básicas, contribuyan a que la incidencia factores de exclusión como el incremento del desempleo, los índices de pobreza o de salud deficiente agraven la discriminación de este sector de la población.…”