Intercult EN

Intercultural matters

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This part of our web site is dedicated to aspects of intercultural understanding and education

Firstly all the training activities of the Pestalozzi Programme by nature also opportunities for intercultural encounters and we would like to bring these intercultural aspects of our work to the forefront. Secondly, we are also working on a project on “Intercultural education and exchanges” which promotes the development of intercultural competence as one of the key competences needed in today’s world

The general aim of this project is to offer an educational rationale and conceptual framework for the development of intercultural competence as well as the necessary instruments for the full integration of the development of this key competence for mutual understanding in diversity as a constituent part into mainstream education. The expected result of this project is the introduction of a systematic description of intercultural competence in school curricula as well as the dissemination of teaching and training resources for intercultural education.

OVERVIEW

Recognising intercultural competence: What shows that I am interculturally competent ?
We invite you to test a new, draft tool to support you on the way to a fuller understanding of yourself in the context of diversity. It was developed in a long process coordinated by the Pestalozzi Programme and the Intercultural Cities project of the Council of Europe and the European Wergeland Centre with the help of a team of experts/ trainers:

Ms Ildikó Lázár, coordinator, Hungary

Ms Olena Styslavska, Poland

Mr Hugo Verkest, Belgium Being interculturally competent has widely been recognised for decades as essential for peaceful coexistence in a diverse world. Numerous recent policy papers and recommendations of international organisations, such as The White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (Council of Europe, 2008) have also expressed this need very clearly. Intercultural competence is a key competence that every individual should work on for the development and maintenance of sustainable democratic societies. A group of 30 teachers, school heads and experts from all over Europe met in a three-day Think Tank, drawing on the shared expertise of the participants and on the recent results of research and project work within the Council of Europe and other international organisations. The tool was then tested by teachers and school heads in a large number of countries and it was then finalized taking into account the rich feedback received during the testing period. The main components which make up intercultural competence - attitudes, skills and knowledge - are described in the form of I-statements describing observable behaviour that can be associated with specific aspects of the components. Naturally, the components are interconnected since the knowledge we have about the world and about human interaction as well as our attitudes towards these can only be made visible and observable through our behaviour. Moreover, skills development and knowledge acquisition can only increase intercultural competence if we have the right attitudes and use the knowledge and skills we have acquired accordingly. It is precisely for this reason, because of the importance of attitudes, that these sub-components outnumber those of the skills and the knowledge described in our list of indicators. What shows that you are interculturally competent? The tool is intended to help you look at yourself, at your intercultural competence, and recognise your strong points as well as areas which need further development.
Recognising Intercultural competence – the tool (pdf)

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The PESTALOZZI Programme is the Council of Europe programme for the professional development of teachers and education actors.

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