Education in Europe - An Intercultural Task (Introduction)

Abstract

Following Penser l'Europe (Morin, 1987), this article puts forward the following argument: in Europe today, cultural education (Bildung) is not only a mission for each nation but also an intercultural mission. Only if it adopts this mission will Europe's cultural systems ensure that the next generation is capable of productive thought on the two fundamental trends of globalisation: homogénisation and cultural diversity. The need above all is to learn to confront foreignness, or otherness. What has to be understood is that European forms of logocentrism, egocentrism and ethnocentrism carry a threat, which is the danger of reducing encounters with foreignness to something that is known, instead of learning from these encounters, learning to cope with a certain amount of incomprehension of foreignness and non-identity, learning to think heterobgically. The process of intercultural education involves uncertainties and complexity, difference and transgression, the goal being to live with increasingly numerous forms of hybrid culture.

Keywords: education, social transition, disabilities, special education, intercultural learning