Educating for democratic behavior in an intercultural context

Abstract

Educating for democratic behavior in intercultural contexts is an old and frustrating issue with a new and growing relevancy. The main avenues through which it tries to achieve its goals —educating the child as a democratic knower, as a rational thinker, and as a tolerant actor —are discussed and analyzed. It is argued that what is common to these three avenues is their origin in the same basic positivist presuppositions: that the total separation between the “self” and the “other” can and should be achieved; that the self can and should be objective in judging the other; and that through objective reasoning, the correct solution for every social conflict can be found. These positivist presuppositions are erroneous when they refer to the social domain, that is, that becoming more objective, knowledgeable, and better critical thinkers is unattainable and undesirable. Instead, we should teach children to enrich the construct system by which they interpret themselves in relation to the other through a dialectic with the other's subjective prejudices as experienced in intercultural conflicts. This alternative approach and its praxis implications are presented.