Interkulturelles Lernen - Zur Grundlegung eines didaktischen Prinzips interkultureller Begegnungen

Abstract

In the Federal Republic of Germany there have in recent years been many varied encounters between Germans and representatives of other cultures, particularly those from Third World countries. These have increasingly been organized with an awareness of global interdependence and have as a result opened the door to the influence of foreign cultures and to an unmistakeable movement in the direction of a multicultural society. An intercultural pedagogical approach and didactic theory are faced with the task of resolving the consequent problems related to education and training. The author firstly attempts to systematize as a typology the practice of learning as it occurs in intercultural encounters in so far as this relates to the Federal Republic of Germany. He suggests that 'intercultural learning' should be seen as the didactic principle underlying the organization of learning in such encounters. Through a detailed discussion of his central concepts of 'culture' and 'learning' and of the issue of 'interculturalism', and by sketching a theoretical model of the stages and goals of the learning taking place, he then makes plain the necessary enlargement of the German concept of 'Kultur' and the process of differentiation which the concept of learning will have to engage in if it is to be applicable to educational activity in international or intercultural contexts. © 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers.