Title: The operationalisation of intercultural education contents in initial and continuous teacher education programmes in Romania
Abstract: 1 IntroductionThe concept of culture is one of the most widely used in contemporary research, in a wide range of fields (linguistics, sociology, antropology, media studies, economics, etc.). In time it has been differently conceptualised by various scholars, according to their own perceptions and understanding or by the specific research field they functioned in.It is a widely debated concept, tallying with the difficulty of finding a definition for it. The numerous attempts at defining the concept and the debates in the field of social sciences on the definitions of the term and of their implications in national ideologies and in the practice of public policies are common knowledge by now. For example, Kluckhohn & Kroeber (1952) collected in 1952 no less than 161 definitions of the concept of culture. We will not present here the whole history of the concept of culture since the first essentialist, static and rigid attempts to define it ended up in outmoded definitions for the current society, based on open contexts and variable geometry cultures (Nedelcu, 2008).However, our preferred definition, stemming from the current of cultural relativism, is at the same time the one that meets with the largest consensus in modern anthropology, culture is, in short, a set of behavioural abilities, notions and forms that individuals acquire as members of a certain culture. According to Geertz (1973: 89), culture denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life. According to Lederach (1995), Culture is the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them (p. 9).As such, the concept of culture includes a profound ambiguity, in that, at the same time, it refers to a basic similarity between individuals (these being equally culture-bound), but also to the way in which difference between individuals is produced, culture itself being culture-generative. Defined in this way, the concept of culture actually triggers the co-existence of a plurality of cultures and must therefore be understood from the perspective of relativism, as a cultural current.Cultural relativism reinforces the idea of equality between different cultures in terms of intrinsic value and discourages any attempt at proclaiming one culture as being superior or inferior to others. Values, norms, symbols of a culture must be evaluated within their context and functionality, and not by the criteria of a different culture. Within the given context, the coexistence of several cultures in the same area gave rise to a set of related concepts: multicultural, intercultural, as well as multiculturalism, interculturality.2 Literature Review2.1 The concepts of interculturality and multiculturalityDespite a superficial understanding that might consider the two terms as synonyms, the pair of concepts multicultural/ displays some important differences. Therefore, multicultural is a descriptive term, referring to a state of affairs, to several groups living together in the same society. The concept tends to outline the difference or even the clear distinction between cultures and groups being perceived as different and is used mainly in post colonial societies (Great Britain, the Low Countries), where very often, it refers to ethnic groups concurrently living together, without a real relationship between each other (Giordano, 2003:38).On the contrary, the concept intercultural emphasises the interaction between groups perceived as distinct in a society, referring rather to a dynamic process of exchanges, of dialogue, of group negotiation, as well as the identification of a common language and of a common space in which communication takes place. …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-06-15
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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