Theories of intercultural education - Joseba Arregi, Asier Barandiaran, Dmitrii Enygin, Venera Midova (free ebook reader for ipad txt) 📗

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In the constructivist view, culture is defined through interactions among people, it is fluid in its expression and continuously evolving and adapting to the realities experienced by its members. Culture evolves and reshapes itself throughout the years; it is influenced by the interaction of its members with members of other cultures, and with their surroundings, by cultural and economic exchanges and by globalisation.

Another type of discourse refers to culture as a making process, as multifaceted and diverse in its values, beliefs, practices and traditions – some of which may be recent inventions. Hence, in this view, culture is negotiable and subject to personal choice, and a dynamic process through which the understandings and the boundaries of groups or communities are renegotiated and redefined according to current needs (Council of Europe 2009a: 8).

For many years, a popular representation of culture was what was known as the “iceberg model of culture”. This model shows that certain aspects of culture are visible (like the tip of the iceberg above the water), while others are hidden (under the water). The visible aspects are artefacts and behaviours, such as food, art, dress, language and celebrations, while the invisible aspects are values, beliefs, norms and assumptions. As the understanding of culture has evolved from essentialist to constructivist, the inconsistencies of this model became clearer. The model assumes that culture is a “thing”, failing to represent the dynamics of culture, its fluidity and how it manifests itself in relations between people. The model views culture as something very compact and isolated, leaving little room for personal choices and interpretations or for the changes that culture goes through when its members interact with members of other cultures or with the environment. Additionally, the model provides an implicit qualitative gap between what is above and visible and what is underneath and hidden. It gives the impression that the visible elements, the cultural “folklores”, are super- ficial and bad, whereas what really matters is under the water. This is a very simplistic and superficial way of separating various elements. Culture is a dynamic combination of all these elements, an important aspect to take into account when planning intercultural learning activities.

Culture and identity

The way in which we view culture has consequences for the interpretation of cultural reality; it influences our interaction with other people, and the way in which we understand our identity and the identities of others. We deal with culture in intercultural learning not because culture is the answer to every question, but because it is an important aspect that shapes our world view and our interpretations, along with other aspects, like living conditions, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status and various other situations. As Gavan Titley (2009) states:

The tendency to see and valorise people as belonging to cultural groups underplays and simplifies identity and the importance of gender, class, sexuality, disability and political allegiances in practices of identity as well as practices of discrimination. ... The question is not whether or not culture should be engaged with, but how, in relation to whom, to what extent, in interrelation with what, and with which underlying meanings.

Therefore, “identity, in relation to culture and the many other dimensions that identities have, is constantly ‘under construction’ – a lifelong process of role-taking and role-making that is mediated by extrinsic (societal, political) as well as intrinsic (psychological, emotional) aspects” (Ohana and Otten 2012: 187). Or, as Erikson described it, it is a process in which the two identities – of the individual (or the personal) and of the group (or the social collective) – are merged into one (Kim 2009: 54). Identity, then, is always in process, never an absolutely accomplished fact (Brah 2004: 34).

If we view our identity as static, as something given at birth, we tend to behave in a way that fits into the box defined by what we and others believe that specific identity to be – based on expectations about cultural norms, gender roles, religious beliefs, etc.

If we view our identity and the identities of other people as something that evolves and reshapes continuously in interactions, we allow ourselves to continuously reshape our identity according to our expectations from the world, not according to what the world expects from us. More importantly, we allow other people to construct their own identity and we refrain from putting them into boxes, from labelling them, from looking at them through the lens of stereotypes.

Identity can then be defined both as belonging to certain groups and differentiating from others, with variations in these feelings of being “inside” or “outside”. Depending on the contexts we are in, we constantly redefine our identity. For example, as the only woman in a group of men, the awareness about gender identity might be stronger than in a gender-mixed group. Various researchers therefore speak about the concept of “multiple identities” (Burke and Stets 2009). Although this concept is mainly used to describe people growing up with various cultural backgrounds, it can be extended to any human being in changing social contexts.

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Intercultural learning processes aim at deconstructing the meaning of “having an identity”:

Identity becomes a “moveable” feast formed and transformed continuously in relation to the ways we are represented or addressed in the cultural systems which surround us ... Within us are contradictory identities pulling in different directions, so that our identifications are continuously being shifted about (Hall 1992: 277).

A person’s identity is defined both through auto-identification (how we identify ourselves) and through hetero- identification (how others identify us). At an individual level, identity is strongly connected with the need to relate to other people, to society at large and to the perception of one’s own autonomy. More often than not, the identity that one person assumes is different from the identity that is “given” by others.

Even if, as mentioned before, culture has evolved from a static, essentialist view to a dynamic, constructivist one, we often communicate in a way that assumes there can only be one cultural identity (for example, when responding to queries such as: Where are you from? Do you consider yourself Serbian or German? How come you go to church if you are gay?). This type of world view has a great potential to create a cognitive dissonance (a discomfort caused by holding simultaneously conflicting ideas, emotions, beliefs or values). In order to avoid this, and to reach a coherent narrative about ourselves, we need to go through a process of accommodating the different facets of our identity, to feel like a unique and complete human being. The Council of Europe published the European Manifesto for Multiple Cultural Affiliation (Council of Europe 2007b), which openly affirms that, at a given time or at different stages in their lives, people may adhere to different cultural affiliations:

Multiple cultural affiliation makes it possible both to conceive and to experience the complex, differentiated devel- opment of cultural identity in mature democratic societies. It firstly recognises communities which bring with them different references in terms of identity and secondly allows each individual to have a number of specific identities expressed through belonging to various cultures ... Multiple belonging is perceived as the possibility for everyone, either individually or in a group, to feel simultaneous or successive affiliation with a set of values or cultural references shared by several groups or communities of beliefs or interests.

Usually, individuals subjectively identify with more than one social group. In addition, people frequently use their personal attributes (such as fun-loving, conscientious, conservative, tolerant, etc.) and their interpersonal relationships and social roles (such as mother, friend, son, employee, etc.) as further components of their self- concepts. These multiple identifications with social groups, attributes, relationships and roles help individuals to orientate their position and define themselves in the social world relative to other people (Council of Europe 2009a). In order to be involved in a meaningful and authentic intercultural encounter, one needs to find the balance between acknowledging the cultural specificities of a certain group and carefully listening to the person in front with an open mind and without labelling.

Individuals aim at maintaining a positive self-identity and at feeling secure in their identity. Different strate- gies are used in order to attain this. One of them is to make a distinction between the in-group (“us”) and the out-group (“them”). When people define their group belonging in opposition to other groups, an artificial categorisation is created, one that accentuates differences and reduces similarities, saying basically that “we are good and they are bad”. Various social studies in the 1970s showed that the single act of putting people into two distinct groups was sufficient for creating a feeling of competition or confrontation with, in some cases, quick escalation to violence and discrimination. The most famous example remains the Stanford prison experiment.9

Culture, identity and intercultural learning

Intercultural learning promotes the view that no culture is better or worse than the other, that there is no hierarchy of cultures. It leads to an understanding that the definition of groups of belonging, of in-groups and out-groups, can be superficial and changing.

All too often, culture has been considered as completely overlapping with nationality, with the borders of nation states, or even an entire region (for example, Arab culture). Intercultural learning acknowledges that there are general characteristics of a culture, but there is also a multitude of specificities related to how a culture is lived and that cultures themselves are internally heterogeneous. Therefore, instead of putting people into “boxes of culture”, it looks into how people are influenced differently by their dominant culture, how they identify with characteristics of various cultures and how they create their own mosaic of identity. Putting people into boxes because of their passport, their birthplace, their appearance or any other element that enforces the potential of stereotypes, or seeing participants in an international training course as “ambassadors” of their country is a biased way of engaging in intercultural learning. Just because people were born or live in a certain country

9. See www.prisonexp.org, accessed 3 October 2017.

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it does not mean they can speak for the entire population or they can be made accountable for the decisions of their government. Intercultural learning processes support participants in understanding the impact of the cultural background on their identity development and on their interpersonal and intercultural relations.

Intercultural learning guides young people to adjust their images about cultural groups and about individuals belonging to cultural groups, to actively listen and understand others, in order to offer them the space to freely manifest their cultural identity. In this process, they learn to refrain from labelling people, from putting them in the categories that were already created before the actual encounter.

Once we stop categorising the world into “us and them”, we begin to see more similarities between people, between their cultures, identities, behaviours and world views. Identities that partly overlap are no contradic- tion: they are a source of strength and point to the possibility of common ground (Council of Europe 2008b).

Therefore, in intercultural learning processes, it is important to give enough space for people to explore their identities, to create opportunities for self-analysis and self-understanding, both individually and in relation to others. There is no linear relation between learning about us and learning about others. Self and others are interdependent; the better we understand ourselves, the better we can understand others and vice versa.

Some questions to reflect on

f What is your understanding of culture?
f As an educator, does your approach support the static or the dynamic notions of culture? Or maybe both?

Or yet another notion?

f What are the different groups with which you identify yourself now?

f Is your image about yourself (auto-identification) coherent with the image other people have about you (hetero-identification)? How can you find out?

f How can young people be supported in understanding and affirming their identity?

f What is, in your opinion, the impact of migration on culture and identity?

f What is, in your opinion, the impact of globalisation on culture and identity?

f In some societies, migrants and minorities are