ECUMENICAL AND INTERCULTURAL LEARNING: THE COMPLEMENTARITY OF TWO LEARNING DIMENSIONS

Abstract

Old problems cannot be solved with new terminology. It may, however, well be that new facts and developments also require a new vocabulary in order to describe reality adequately or to formulate objectives in current idiom. The term ‘intercultural/interreligious learning’ seems to be such a new key term in the educational discourse. It also recurs in the discussion of religious education in the Federal Republic of Germany, whereas ‘ecumenical learning’, which was introduced in the seventies and was very popular in the eighties, seems to have receded into the background. Could one, in the light of these developments, perhaps do without the term ‘ecumenical learning’ and merge it with the concept ‘intercultural/interreligious learning’? The fact that intercultural learning plays a role in ecumenical learning, and dimensions of ecumenical learning appear in intercultural learning, speaks in favour of a merging of the two terms. The development from ecumenical to intercultural learning is thus implied by these terms. What they have in common is, inter alia, that both distance themselves from an accumulative, content-oriented learning in favour of an open, dialogue-oriented understanding of learning.