Interculturalism, Education and Dialogue

Intercultural dialogue is a concept and discourse that dates back to the 1980s. It is the major means for managing diversity and strengthening democracy within Europe and beyond. It has been adopted by the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe as the basis for interreligious and interfaith initiatives and has become increasingly associated with a liberal theory of modernity and internationalism that presupposes freedom, democracy, human rights and tolerance. It is now the dominant paradigm for ‘cultural policy’ and the educational basis for the development of intercultural understanding. Governments have placed their hope in intercultural education as the way to avoid the worst excesses of globalization, especially exclusion and marginalization, and the problems of xenophobia and racism that afflict European societies. Interculturalism, Education and Dialogue is an international collection by renowned scholars who examine the ideological underpinnings of the European model and its global applications. It explores the historical, philosophical and educational dimensions of intercultural dialogue.

Tina Besley is Professor of Education at Waikato University, New Zealand and Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her four books on Michel Foucault have been critically acclaimed. In 2009, her Subjectivity and Truth: Foucault, Education and the Culture of Self (Peter Lang, 2007), co-authored with Michael A. Peters, was awarded the American Educational Studies Association Critic’s Choice Award. Michael A. Peters is Professor of Education at Waikato University, New Zealand and Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the editor of three international journals and the author or editor of over sixty books, including the trilogy Imagination: Three Models of Imagination in the Age of the Knowledge Economy (2010), Global Creation: Space, Connection and Universities in the Age of the Knowledge Economy (2010) and Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy (Peter Lang, 2009), all with Simon Marginson and Peter Murphy.