Intercultural Dialogue in the European Education Policies by Tuuli Lähdesmäki & Aino-Kaisa Koistinen & Susanne C. Ylönen

Author:Tuuli Lähdesmäki & Aino-Kaisa Koistinen & Susanne C. Ylönen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030415174
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Conceptual Overlaps and Interchangeable Concepts

The analysis of European education policy documents indicated that some of the concepts that are commonly discussed in scholarly literature on intercultural dialogue—which is why we chose to examine them more closely—occurred often in our data, while others were less frequently used. Moreover, some of the concepts turned out to have less significant content for illuminating the idea and practices of intercultural dialogue. For instance, citizenship and participation were commonly addressed in the data without a direct link or in contexts irrelevant to intercultural dialogue and did not feature prominently in the ‘dense’ extracts that explicitly and/or implicitly addressed intercultural dialogue (that are analysed in the next chapter). Other concepts, such as (cultural) identity, tolerance, and empathy, were rarely used in our data, although they play an important role in the idea and practices of intercultural dialogue.

The European education policy documents in our data often seemed to deal with the idea and practices of intercultural dialogue without explicitly referring to the concept as such. Similarly, the core concepts that we chose to examine more closely were often addressed through various other concepts, terms, and expressions. Inclusion, for example, was mostly dealt with in terms of ‘integration’ in the Council of Europe documents and as social inclusion in the European Union documents. In some instances, inclusion was also referred to in (value) statements that spoke of cohesion, unity, understanding, recognition, admission, access, approval, accession (in relation to working against discrimination), non-discrimination, and equality. Empathy was also rarely used explicitly, but addressed by calling for respect, solidarity, mutual understanding, and reconciliation. Tolerance, in turn, was often referred to via references to aspirations and projects combating intolerance. Multiculturalism was likewise hardly mentioned as such in the data, but multicultural circumstances were referred to via terms such as plurilingualism and cultural diversity. Social responsibility was not mentioned explicitly in the documents, but the concept appeared once as ‘socially responsible’ when referring to the “the need to understand and use language in a positive and socially responsible manner”. Socially responsible use of language was included in a “positive attitude” that requires “a disposition to critical and constructive dialogue [—] and an interest in interaction with others” (EP & CofEU 2006, 14), thus echoing the ideals of intercultural dialogue, even though the passage discusses communication in a shared mother tongue. Yet, most of the documents can be interpreted as calls for social responsibility because of their nature as recommendations, conventions, and charters addressing social and cultural issues of inclusion, human rights, and social justice.

In the following list, we summarize the core concepts included in the examination of intercultural dialogue in European education policy documents and the varying forms of other concepts, terms, and expressions used to discuss them in the data. The list indicates how these core concepts are interrelated and overlapping, and their variations are used flexibly and interchangeably. At the same time, the list reveals the conceptual vagueness and ambiguity in European education policies.

Intercultural dialogue: (plain) dialogue (as indicating dialogue

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