Intercultural education

Intercultural education describes pedagogical approaches that are intended to encourage people of different origins to live together. It is particularly about finding a way to deal with foreignness in joint intercultural learning .

The starting point of intercultural education is the cultural contact thesis , which states that the common life of people from different cultures can trigger a learning process for everyone involved. By recognizing differences and similarities, your own positions that have not been questioned until then can be reconsidered and, if necessary, new solution strategies can be identified. Intercultural education assumes that all cultures exist side by side on an equal footing and that the learning process can take place on all sides.

This approach is based on a dynamic concept of culture : culture is understood here as something that is constantly evolving and is not statically solidified, but on the contrary develops permeable structures. The decisive moment in this development process is the examination of other cultures. In this respect, a frequently encountered idea of intercultural pedagogy as "foreigner pedagogy" falls short. In schools, classmates from other cultures, especially those with a migration background, are carriers of a different culture from the one found; basically, however, it is a general educational approach that makes any difference between people (including gender difference, social difference, intellectual difference, etc.) the subject of productive discussion. This understanding of culture stands in complementary contrast to the politically formed concept of the (German) leading culture .

Intercultural pedagogy has very concrete intentions, such as the ability to actively grapple with differences that are constitutive for a pluralistic society. It is at the same time a rejection of indifference and a misunderstood concept of tolerance.

aims

Intercultural education pursues different goals:

Promote understanding of different perspectives
Withstanding contradictions ( tolerance of ambiguity )
Education to respect other people
Breaking down prejudices
Adaptation (integrative, but also assimilative)
Education for interculturality
Preservation of independence
joint upbringing in socio-educational institutions (initiate mutual learning experiences)

In addition, there are overlaps with other educational approaches that have been further developed with the concept of intercultural education:

history

The joint schooling of children of different social, ethnic and religious origins is historically not new. The children of the linguistic minorities (or the “foreign-speaking parts of the people” as they were called in the Weimar Republic) always had to attend school because they were citizens. The point of conflict, however, was the 'foreign' language (Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Danish, Frisian, Moravian, etc.). On the other hand, children of foreign nationality were not included in general compulsory schooling; they could attend public schools, but schools could also refuse to accept them. They often attended private schools. Children of foreign nationality were included in the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1960s. In the GDR it was already anchored in the School Act of 1950 that foreign children were required to attend school, but in view of the restrictive migration policy and the lack of integration policy in the GDR, this regulation has hardly been applied. In addition, there were also approaches for joint teaching of children of different religious affiliations, e.g. B. the free schools of the Haskala , which tried to realize a common teaching of Jewish and Christian children. During the Nazi era , even the few approaches to democratically dealing with “otherness” were discredited and destroyed; Anti-Semitism and racism as state-sponsored learning goals increased to the systematic discrimination of people and groups who were branded as 'different', to the murder of Jews , Roma , Sinti or the disabled.

After liberation from National Socialism , the Allies tried, among other things, to counter the widespread racism through intercultural approaches (" inter-group education "). In the Federal Republic of Germany the linguistic minority of the Danes was recognized - after a few conflicts - and in the GDR the Sorbs were given partial cultural autonomy; Children of foreign nationality were admitted to school in the FRG, but they did not become compulsory until the 1960s. At this point in time, it was less the fact that families had also immigrated as a result of the recruitment of foreign workers than the freedom of movement regulations for people associated with the formation and development of the EEC / EU. In this context, the first integration aids for foreign children and adolescents were conceived, but they were primarily perceived as integration aids for “guest worker children”. These integration aids (preparatory classes, additional German lessons, homework help on the one hand and mother tongue lessons on the other) were designed to be compensatory or return-oriented, so that the impression arose that one was dealing with students who had particular deficits.

In a series of model experiments, concepts were developed and tested that should enable a different, non-deficit-oriented approach. In one of these model experiments, the situation approach was used in order to be able to start promoting as early as preschool age, keyword early childhood education .

On the discipline level, towards the end of the 1970s, the criticism of the deficit orientation of previous educational policy and pedagogical approaches increased (keyword: foreigner education). The Eurocentric view and the fact that the core of the school was not touched was also criticized . All previous regulations and changes - so the criticism - resulted in adapting the children to the school. The aim of pedagogy in a society that is linguistically, culturally, ethnically, etc. differentiated, however, must be to change the school or the educational system in such a way that every school-age child is supported according to his possibilities and can be educationally successful. This discussion is not over, but there are first important steps in this direction: E.g. the recommendation of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers of 1996 that intercultural education and upbringing is defined as a cross-sectional task and key qualification, or the efforts - 'startled' by the PISA results - to change the learning time and learning arrangements, keyword: strengthening early childhood education, early language promotion, Expansion of all-day schools through to efforts to train or hire more people with a migration background for teaching.

criticism

Critics accuse the intercultural theory of ignoring the level of structural and institutional discrimination and disadvantage (example: school system) as well as the sociopolitical, social and economic framework conditions of a nation-state-based immigration society, if they assume that the problem will be solved through exclusively equal learning and cooperation. In addition, the focus on cultural differences or the overemphasis on ethnic components in culture and the requirement of homogeneous cultures and (national) attributions of identity in intercultural education have led to the accusation of naive culturalism , as this tends to reinforce culturalistic stereotypes and pass on prejudices . Attempts to face such criticism in a pragmatic way can be found to some extent in transcultural education .

literature

G. Auernheimer: Introduction to intercultural pedagogy , 2003, ISBN 3534169247 .
G. Auernheimer (Ed.): Migration as a challenge for educational institutions , 2001, ISBN 3810029416 .
G. Auernheimer (Ed.): Intercultural Competence and Pedagogical Professionalism , 2002, ISBN 381003441X .
W. Baros / W. Kempf (Ed.): Knowledge interests, methodology and methods of intercultural educational research. Berlin: regener 2014, ISBN 978-3936014327 .
W. Baros / F. Hamburger / P. Mecheril (ed.): Between practice, politics and science. The diverse references of intercultural education. Berlin: regener 2010, ISBN 9783936014235 .
C. Földes / G. Antos (Ed.): Interculturality: Method Problems in Research. Contributions of the international conference in the German Institute of the Pannonian University Veszprém, 7. – 9. October 2004 , Munich: Iudicium 2007, ISBN 978-3-89129-197-9 .
I. Gogolin, M. Krüger-Potratz: Introduction to intercultural pedagogy. Opladen: barbara Budrich 2006 (UTB; 8246: Erziehungswissenschaft), ISBN 3-86649-993-0 - ISBN 3-8252-8246-5 - ISBN 978-3-8252-8246-2 .
M. Gomolla, F.-O. Radtke: Institutional Discrimination , 2002, ISBN 3810019879 .
A. Holzbrecher: Intercultural Pedagogy (Study Book), 2004, ISBN 3589215607 .
A. Wood crusher / U. Over (Ed.): Handbuch interkulturelle Schulentwicklung , 2015, ISBN 9783407257154 .
M. Krüger-Potratz: Intercultural Education . An introduction. (= Learning for Europe), Münster u. a .: Waxmann, 2005, ISSN 1430-2675 , ISBN 3-8309-1484-9 .
W. Nieke: Intercultural upbringing and education. Value orientations in everyday life. (School and Society, Vol. 4). 3. update and exp. Edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15566-1 .

Britta Nielen: Intercultural Education, in: Norbert Kühne : Praxisbuch Sozialpädagogik Volume 1, Bildungsverlag EINS, Troisdorf 2005; ISBN 3-427-75409-X .
Arata Takeda : We are like tree trunks in the snow. A plea for transcultural education . Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin: Waxmann, 2012. ISBN 978-3-8309-2716-7 .

Web links