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Intercultural education in everyday practice
Citation
Tupas, R. (2014). Intercultural education in everyday practice. Intercultural Education, 25(4), 243-254. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2014.883166
Author
Tupas, T. Ruanni F.
Abstract
While there is substantive work in intercultural education, especially that which proposes intellectual or conceptual roadmaps for pedagogic interculturalism and, more specifically for the classroom, there is a need to surface the complexity of everyday intercultural classroom practices. This article reflects on some Singapore students’ responses to materials designed to help them engage critically with intercultural issues. These responses can be categorized into three types of trajectory: reifying, critical and conflicted. Reifying practices basically mean that students essentialize individuals, communities and countries despite (and perhaps because of) the intercultural approach to the teaching of communication. Critical trajectories, on the other hand, showcase students’ ability to identify stereotypes and provide much more nuanced characterizations of individuals and countries. Conflicted trajectories, however, seem to be the most dominant classroom practice: these are attempts of students to be critical but, in practice, their criticality is enmeshed in reifying tendencies. In other words, students’ engagement with interculturalism is conflicted: ‘criticality’ as it is envisioned is always incomplete on the ground. Thus, we need micro-lenses in interculturalism and intercultural education to help us critically reflect on and surface essentialisms, tensions and struggles in everyday classroom practice.
Date Issued
2014
DOI
10.1080/14675986.2014.883166
Description
This is the final draft, after peer-review, of a manuscript published in Intercultural Education. The published version is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14675986.2014.883166