ICT and PB Learning Combined for the Advancement of Intercultural Education

This chapter intends to describe the case of the MIEC virtual exhibition as well as reflect upon the relevance of ICT, namely Google Arts and Culture, for the promotion of cultural heritage tourism. In this vein, the authors will first approach the issues of cultural tourism and ICT, exploring how virtual exhibitions and digitization have become an important tool to empower institutions and audiences. Secondly, the authors will present, discuss, and assess the project-based learning (PBL) activities, starting with the presentation of the platform, its advantages and disadvantages for learning and teaching. Then, the authors will analyze some of the results obtained from a pedagogical perspective by scrutinizing students' surveys and opinions. These results will also report on the research outcomes of the project, and an accountability of its marketing purposes will be proposed. The chapter will finally put forward the limitations of this ongoing project and intended future research, suggesting how similar projects can be implemented, managed, and assessed.

An Approach for Providing LGBTI+ Education and Bridging the Language Gap

Intercultural education is acquiring great importance in today's education; among its considered elements, it is also starting to address gender/sexual identity as a way to counterattack prejudices and intolerant attitudes towards LGTBI+ people. However, it is still necessary to reconsider how to deal with these concepts from teacher training in an effective way so as to prepare these professionals to develop their work in an inclusive way. Teachers of English as a Foreign Language are ideal for addressing such concepts as the area allows relationships with several dimensions of life (e.g., literature, art, television). These teachers have to face the necessity to include LGTBI+ in their teaching practice, and to fight the language gap caused by social and economic disparities. This chapter revises how including the ESoPC approach in English teacher training helps integrate LGBTI+ issues to educate future generations in respect towards gender/sexual diversity and bridge the language gap.

Rethinking and Reinventing Intercultural Education in Post-Secondary Institutions: A Critical, Anti-Colonial Approach

Critical and anti-colonial scholarship helps us imagine how intercultural education might begin to address the power imbalances inherent to issues of culture and epistemology. This paper reflexively dialogues anti-colonial theory with my own experiments of practically implementing these theories within the Intercultural Program (IP), an extracurricular program at a Canadian postsecondary institution, to demonstrate possibilities for shaping intercultural education towards ethical ends. Through curriculum, programming, and community-building that is cocreated with students, the IP aspires to shape intercultural education towards social justice and equity, opening spaces for engagement with nondominant epistemologies, and promoting the critical thinking necessary for evaluating the historical, economic, political, social, and ethical implications of students’ own and others’ positions. At the same time, the IP provides a helpful site for exploring the challenges of doing critical work in an internationalizing institution, and the need, perhaps, to move intercultural education away from internationalization within higher education.

Developing an understanding of intercultural music education in a Nordic setting

The purpose of this article is to achieve greater clarification of the meaning of the word ‘intercultural’ when used in Nordic music education research, by means of a literature review. The findings suggest that ‘intercultural’ is used in different ways, sometimes without definition. A central theme that emerges is developing student teachers’ intercultural competence through disturbance. There is little research into pupils’ intercultural competence, or intercultural music education at primary level. The findings are merged with international scholarship to envisage how different understandings of ‘intercultural’ might affect music in schools. We suggest placing intercultural music education along a continuum from intercultural approaches to music education to intercultural education through inclusive music pedagogy.

EDUCATIONAL IMPACTS AND INTERACTIONS CREATED BY SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS REGARDING ACCESSIBILITY IN THE AREA OF COMMUNICATION

The article presents the results of research related to possibilities of moral and intercultural education contained in social networks and accessibility in the area of communication. The aim of the study is to identify and describe the impact of influencers on adolescents in regard to accessibility to information and communication. A software solution was used in order to obtain samples for the analysis of multiple posts published by different individuals in various social networks. The results indicate that opportunities for an effective process of education concerning the aforementioned elements can be observed if the content published by influencers is compliant with certain factors. Some of those factors are as follows: the posts should describe personal examples to which people can relate or can perceive in order to comprehend the challenges connected to accessibility in a better way; the content should comprise explanations that clarify situations and issues, providing information and raising awareness; the followers and the influencers should encourage discussions on these topics, ensuring that decisions should be made and solutions should be found on the matter of accessibility in the area of communication.

Inclusive Intercultural Education in Multicultural Societies

Cultural diversity is a characteristic of plural societies, and the way that each society approaches that diversity determines whether or not the societies evolve or stagnate, whether cultural groups remain segregated or integrate, and whether social inequalities grow or if communities affirm the value of diversity and promote equality. For this reason, it is important to analyze the cultural diversity management system that guides our interventions because the socioeducational methods and practices designed for any given plural context depends on them. Research refers to the assimilationist, multicultural, and intercultural cultural diversity management models, and the conclusion appears to be that the intercultural model is the framework that [best] accounts for an integrated and inclusive society. Interculturalism requires the establishment of policies that champion equity, in order to achieve equality at the legal and social levels, and that promote genuine equality of opportunity. At the same time, it demands pedagogical practices based in civic education. An intercultural education should help us learn to live together and should educate people, to grow their knowledge, understanding, and respect for cultural diversity. Intercultural education is a reflective, socioeducational practice focused on social and cultural transformation through equal rights, equity, and positive interaction between different cultures. Intercultural education is characterized by an acknowledgment of cultural diversity, a positive valuation of egalitarian relations, equal educational opportunities for all, and moving beyond racism and discrimination. Fundamentally, intercultural education can be understood as an educational model that champions cultural diversity and the advantages it offers within an education context, such as the values of human rights and equality, and a rejection of cultural discrimination.

Pädagogische Ansatzpunkte in der Umweltbildung für Zuwanderer/-innen

Regarding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in general and Environmental Education in particular, immigrant adults are still insufficiently involved and not identified as a relevant target group. However, in recent years, there have been and continue to be few initiatives that are dedicated to promoting sustainable practices of migrants. The article starts at this point and examines, with recourse to various concepts of intercultural education on the one hand and the distinction between politischer Bildung und Erziehung, both referred to as political education in the Anglo-Saxon context, three environmental initiatives in Germany, thus linking ESD and intercultural education.

Ethnic Identity Discourse in Intercultural Education

Teaching intercultural education and communication without personal ethnic identity development exposes students to the possibility of becoming so enamored with the cultures of others that they become disillusioned with their own ethnic heritages. Such circumstances are especially detrimental to children of color living in societies in which everything associated with White people is considered positive, good, and desirable, and much associated with people of color is interpreted to be negative, dangerous and worthy of denigration. In this article, I report and analyze the findings of primary and secondary school teachers who facilitated students’ ethnic identity development using subject matter content. With a strong sense of their ethnic identity, I argue that such students are positioned to benefit from instruction in intercultural education and communication with its requisite new cultural knowledge, feelings and behaviors. These findings reinforce both the need and efficacy of ethnic identity exploration as a necessary component of intercultural education at all levels of schooling. Ethnic identity exploration in education includes making connections with students’ families about ethnic identity, engaging students in ethnic identity dialogue, introducing students to social justice role models in their ethnic groups, and exploration of ethnic histories, traditions, and customs.

Intercultural Education and Competences at School

The present time of globalization, interdependence and multicultural societies has brought about both opportunities and crisis that concern all fields involved with social welfare, especially education (Portera, 2020, 2006). Within the school environment, there is a growing need for intercultural education and competences at the cognitive, emotional and relational levels, which will endow teachers and students with the abilities to operate in linguistically and culturally complex contexts (UNESCO, 2015; Portera, 2013; Deardorff, 2009). However, the concepts of ‘Intercultural Education’ and ‘Intercultural Competences’ are often misunderstood and require more precise definition. The authors review the scientific literature on the aforementioned concepts and then report the results of a study carried out by the Centre for Intercultural Study at the University of Verona (Italy) which examines how teachers who work in different types of schools define and apply the concept of ‘intercultural competences’ in their praxis. The study uses a qualitative research methodology that includes a process of ‘triangulation’. Specifically, a series of semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participant observations were conducted in order to explore teachers’ intercultural competences, especially through the analysis of critical incidents. After discussing the results, the authors outline impplications for teacher education and school praxis in intercultural perspective.