Theoretical reflections on intercultural education

The Double Bind of Interculturality and the Implications for Education

“…Although several academic commentators have made advances beyond the taxonomic assumptions of the nation-state as a unified field of analysis for intercultural education (Arnove 2007;Cowen 2009;Gundara & Portera 2008), others have pointed out that the drawing of national borders remains a potent symbol of cultural unity within interculturality (Bash & Gundara 2012;Gorski 2008). A similar pattern has been detected in this essay.…”

“…Although multiculturalism remains in use, the impetus for the lexical change from one prefix (multi) to another (inter) derives, as some advocates of interculturality have suggested, from the fact that multiculturalism tends to reify and preserve cultural identities, while interculturality acknowledges that cultures are endlessly evolving in a society, with the potential to be exchanged and modified (cf. Gundara & Portera 2008). Consequently, wherever interculturality is primarily used it is employed distinctively from multiculturalism: the latter is seen to be a descriptive term for the factual co-existence of people of diverse cultures in a given space, whereas the former is said to characterize actual interaction between people once impediments to relations have been removed (Gundara 2000).…”

Comparative perspectives on education in the multicultural Nordic countries

“…There is no consensus within educational research regarding theoretical definitions of intercultural or multicultural educational research (Banks and Banks 1995;Gundara and Portera 2008;Holm and Zilliacus 2009;Nieto 2008). This is reflected in the educational research conducted in the Nordic countries.…”

Impossible Interculturality? : Education and the Colonial Difference in a Multicultural World

“…To commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the International Association for Intercultural Education (IAIE) in 2008, Jagdish Gundara and Agostino Portera edited a special issue of the journal Intercultural Education, in which interculturality was cast as the most important educational initiative for addressing problems of inequality -racism, xenophobia, socio-economic marginalization -throughout the world (Gundara & Portera, 2008). As anthologies, educational literature and the considerable number of academic courses devoted to interculturality propagate its importance, citing the Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence (2009, p. xiii), as a means 'to better understand others' behaviours to interact effectively and appropriately with others and, ultimately, to become more interculturally competent', the disciplinary construct has secured its foothold in both the academy and mainstream publishing.…”