Critical Interculturality Research Articles

From Surface-Level to Structural Change: Integrating Critical Interculturality in English Language Education

From Surface-Level to Structural Change: Integrating Critical Interculturality in English Language Education

Critical Interculturality and CALL in ELT: A Necessary Approach in Colombian Contemporary Education

The most recent events in contemporary history have accelerated not only the evolution of technology but also multiple fields of knowledge which include models of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL). However, Colombian education has resisted the changes of the XXI century due to the generational clash between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” (Prensky, 2001). Furthermore, EFL in Colombian public schools has been faithful to Western models that elude local contexts and contribute little to reflection, development of proposals, and students’ agency regarding our society’s day-to-day reality. Such actions, as proposed by Catherine Walsh, fall within the realm of what Critical Interculturality (CI) promotes (Walsh, 2010). Coupled with this, the integration of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to develop this approach has been limited since its usage has mainly been focused on improving linguistic skills. In this article I will present some theoretical foundations and empirical studies that unveil the importance of developing more studies that facilitate the integration of CI and CALL tools in EFL at the public secondary school in Colombia.

Decolonizing Knowledge and Academic Practices through collaborative methodology: Reflections on Collaborative filmmaking with Indigenous Students in the Peruvian Amazon

This article reflects on a recent collaborative filmmaking experience in the Peruvian Amazon with indigenous students at the intercultural University of Nopoki. It draws on the theoretical notions of decoloniality of knowledge and knowledge production (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), functional and critical interculturality (Tubino & Flores, 2020), participatory visual methodologies (Mitchell, De Lange, & Moletsane, 2017), and the crucial input of indigenous knowledge (Rose, 2018). It focuses on the moments of intersection where collaboration provided new insights into the design and methodology of the research, the use of technology, and the distance between the theoretical framework and the experiential (vivencial) knowledge of the participants. Thus, underscoring that research and knowledge production should incorporate local knowledge from the Global South to continue its adaptable line (Finck Carrales, 2021).

‘Inter-ideologicality’ in intercultural communication education: co-constructing criticality around the concept of culture in international online student mobility

The world has been experiencing huge upheavals since the COVID-19 crises. Conflicts caused by opposing ideologies, economic-political agendas and realities are rampant within or across borders. Such unsteady circumstances contribute to shifting how Transnational Education (TNE) occurs worldwide, as well as the scientific, epistemic and educational discourses that go with it. Anchored within critical interculturality, this paper explores the concept of ‘inter-ideologicality’. The study looks at short-term online international student mobility to demonstrate how students from China and Finland navigate and negotiate ideologies around the concept of culture in intercultural research and education. The study also employs Wang Chong’s perspectives on criticality to identify emerging ideologies in the co-construction of criticality in students’ online cooperation. Findings reveal that (1) two ideological orientations, nation-oriented and society-oriented, developed during discussions about culture; (2) Finnish students used a specific form of reasoning to contradict Chinese students’ thoughts about Finland by means of criticality towards the nation-oriented ideology; (3) Chinese and Finnish students employed questioning and challenging to help each other be aware of something left unsaid about the status of women in their societies within the society-oriented ideology. The study represents an important meta-approach to intercultural communication education within internationalization of Higher Education, aimed at supporting mobile students to reflect critically on the scientific and educational notion of interculturality rather than providing them with ready-made recipes as to how to communicate and behave interculturally.

Regional Educational Policies and Critical Interculturality in Rural Areas of the Province of Abancay - Apurímac, 2023

The research work was carried out with the aim of analyzing regional educational policies and critical interculturality in secondary education in rural areas of the province of Abancay, department of Apurímac, 2023. The research is basic, qualitative and design-based, phenomenological-hermeneutic. The study population consisted of specialists, principals, teachers and students of the secondary education level of rural areas of the UGEL (Local Educational Management Unit) Abancay and the sample consisted of: 4 specialists from the DREA (Regional Directorate of Education of Apurímac), 3 specialists from the UGEL Abancay, secondary level, 6 rural education teachers from the EBR (Regular Basic Education), secondary school level, 6 directors and 6 students from rural schools in the province of Abancay. The following data collection instruments were used: semi-structured interview guide, documentary review form and non-participant observation guide. From the research it is concluded that the PERs (Regional Educational Policies) of Apurimac do not implement strategies of CI (critical interculturality) and the educational communities of rural schools do not know about the current PER (Regional Educational Project), but the native students demand the vindication of their language in educational and social processes

Critical Interculturality and EFL Textbooks: Examining the Tensions

This article aims to analyse the relationship between critical interculturality and textbooks for teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL). To achieve this, I analysed 94 documents, including articles, dissertations, and book chapters published in several national and international databases in the period from 2013 to 2023. The review of these studies also serves as a means to understand how different scholars have analysed textbooks in their contexts. This article is derived from a doctoral study that stems from my personal and professional interests. The research presents seven tensions that reveal traditional ways of analysing textbooks over decades, the need for deeper critical intercultural views, biased cultural and intercultural representations, uncritical literacy practices, coloniality of being, bilingual policy hegemony, and controlled evaluation, selection, and use of EFL textbooks. All this means that there is a need to consider critical interculturality as an attempt to decolonize traditional ways of teaching at different educational levels of education. The result of this analysis further suggests a research gap regarding critical interculturality and EFL textbooks.

Critical Intercultural Pedagogical Experiences: The case of two public schools

This article is the result of our research interest in the concept of Critical Interculturality (CI) along with our professional pedagogical experiences at the public-school level. The experiences took place in two different regions in Colombia, Medellín, Antioquia, and Florencia, Caquetá. These experiences were initially systematized in a PhD seminar concerning Critical Intercultural theories. First of all, we conceptualise CI from a Latin-American perspective associated with patterns of power and hierarchical structures, while bringing to light other ways of being, living, and knowing. Then, we look at the current stage of English Language Teaching (ELT) Colombian scholarship on CI, which is increasingly being studied from the standpoint of theory rather than practice. Finally, we describe two experiences that highlight public school teachers’ practices from a critical intercultural view going beyond CI theory by categorising and proving that it is possible to undertake authentic critical intercultural pedagogical experiences in the EFL/ELT field.

Indigenous Students and University Stakeholders’ Challenges and Opportunities for Intercultural Decolonial Dialogue

This article presents critical intercultural dialogue as a necessary curricular, pedagogical, and decolonial practice to engage and value Indigenous students’ cultural semiotic resources in higher education. Drawing from social semiotics, critical interculturality, and decolonial theory, the article analyzes Indigenous students’ structural barriers to accessing and completing their undergraduate programs. Using examples from pedagogy courses taught in English and reflections and learnings from a research project with Indigenous students, the article underscores and extends lessons to mobilize Indigenous students’ learning paths, sociocultural practices, and languages, showcasing intercultural dialogue within a public university. Reflections on the tensions, constraints, and possibilities to facilitate university stakeholders’ engagement at multiple levels are discussed.

Inclusive special education in interface with critical interculturality: a look at research from the North of Brazil

The present research was carried out through a bibliographical survey in the postgraduate programs in education in the North region of Brazil. The investigation has the following objectives: a) to describe the perspective of authors who theorize about the concept of interculturality; b) verify if the works found deal with inclusion and the theory of interculturality; c) analyze how these works bring intercultural theory closer to the world of People with Disabilities (PwD). The research discusses Critical Interculturality and its interface with the universe of special/inclusive education. The methodology was qualitative research with a bibliographical survey on the websites of postgraduate courses in education in the North – state and federal institutions. The focus was theses and dissertations defended between the years 2015 to 2020. In the text we use tables and charts with the number of works on special education and the theory of critical interculturality. The results point to three dissertations that articulate special/inclusive education and critical interculturality.

Critical Interculturality and Sociomuseology – decolonial practices and their intersections in Freire's praxis

Critical interculturality and sociomuseology break with power hierarchies and the dominant hegemonic status quo that operates in formal and non-formal educational institutions, based on the recognition of the epistemologies of popular cultures that are made invisible and denied, as a consequence of the coloniality of power, structure of domination that triggers domination. In view of this, this article proposes to discuss critical interculturality and sociomuseology and their intersections with Freire's praxis. This is a literature review, anchored in research and discussions by Walsh (2009, 2019), Tubino (2016), Moutinho (1993, 2007, 2014), Primo (1999), Freire (1987, 1999, 2005), among others. Both reverberate as decolonizing practices of the hegemonic Eurocentric model, which recognizes a universal epistemology to the detriment of the epistemes of Other cultures, constitute new identity projects of differentiation and have as their horizon the production of other ways of life and knowledge. Keywords: cultures; differentiation; praxis; decoloniality.

Freirean inspirations in solidary internationalism between East Timor and Brazil in science education.

The aim of this work is to reflect on the challenging trajectory of international cooperation between East Timor and Brazil, which focused on the need to rethink teacher education from a critical intercultural perspective, aiming to build emancipatory relations, love, and solidarity. From 2009 until 2016, we coordinated the Qualification of Teachers and Teaching of the Portuguese Language program in East Timor, inspired by the dialogicity of Paulo Freire, an educator well known and beloved by the Timorese people for his indirect contribution to the independence of that country. Freire's dialectic denunciation-annunciation was essential to identify the problems and propose solutions with the Timorese and not only for them. In addition, through our experiences in that country, we identified issues like those of Brazilian education as the effects of coloniality and introjections of inferiority and subordination, as well as the transnationalization of education, among other problems. Thus, the Freirean dialectic denunciation-announcement of this praxis, together with Timorese education, drove us to examine our own Brazilian territory, provoking intersectional reflections related to racism, gender and sexuality issues, and social class prejudice, among other forms of oppression. It deepened ways of acting based on critical interculturality and the concept of decolonial pedagogy, which suggested ways to fight for social justice in science education.

Intercultivism and alternative knowledges in intercultural education

ABSTRACT This paper problematises the activist underpinnings of intercultural education. It draws on the recent ‘critical’ works that have unravelled how interculturality is anchored in hierarchical relations within knowledge which reseat the Western conceptions of ‘intercultural’, ‘criticality’ and ‘epistemology’ at the front. The premise of this paper is that decolonial rationales and impulses are constitutive epistemological logics in theorising and doing interculturality otherwise in education. It discusses critical interculturality as a movement of decoloniality that orients education to disrupt power asymmetries. This paper presents intercultivism and de-westernised consciousness as decentering approaches for theorising and practising interculturality in education otherwise.

Decoloniality and Critical Interculturality in Higher Education: Experiences and Challenges in Ecuadorian Amazonia

The struggles for decolonisation involve problems of coloniality of knowledge that persist in postcolonial states and shape their national educational programmes. In Ecuador, the request to decolonise education has been part of the agenda of Indigenous organisations for decades, and has successfully led to the formulation of programmes of intercultural bilingual education. In its radical acception, intercultural education theoretically aims to represent and revitalise knowledges and languages that have been for long under processes of invisibility and erasure. Moreover, the offer of culturally pertinent education would shorten the epistemic distance that plays a role in the access and retention of Indigenous students, especially in higher education. In line with these principles, this study analyses the situation of higher education programmes in the Amazonia region, with a focus on the Universidad Estatal Amazonica (UEA), who claims to integrate ancestral knowledges in its study programmes. The research aims to see how the study contents and pedagogical approaches respect the pluriversal worlds of the Amazonian region. Using official reports, observations and interviews, the study reveals, on the one hand, a persistence of approaches that deny the validity of intercultural education, and on the other hand, a growing presence of decolonial spaces claimed by the students as a reaction to the coloniality of knowledge within the UEA.

ENSINOS DE CIÊNCIAS INSURGENTES: AMBIENTALIZANDO CIÊNCIAS E EDUCAÇÕES

ABSTRACT: The text corresponds to a critical review, whose first version substantiated analyzes and discussions related to field experiences produced in a qualitative research (SÁNCHEZ MOLANO, 2020) in school institutions in the periphery of a Latin American metropolis. Throughout the text, we will be accompanied by the Epistemologies of the South, whose main ideas give consistency to the argumentative thread, in relation to propositions about counter-hegemonic science, contemporary science, Latin American environmentalism and to the notion of ecology of knowledge, as well as to science teaching that can be anchored in those propositions. It advances in the understanding of the scientific practice from the postulates of epistemological pragmatism and methodological pluralism, which would be complementary to educational perspectives inspired by critical interculturality and insurgent environmental education. In the light of the foregoing, nomenclature revisions are proposed in the field of science teaching, more compatible with emancipatory perspectives projected from Latin America.

Repertórios interculturais de mulheres sobre concepções de HIV/AIDS em cenário interétnico

Abstract Objective to analyze, from the perspective of interculturality, the meanings attributed to HIV/AIDS that make up the repertoires of women in interethnic situations. Method a descriptive, retrospective study, developed based on the primary research database. The sample consisted of 642 records, from the application of the Word Association Test, with 386 non-indigenous women and 256 indigenous women from the municipality of Rio Tinto-PB. The responses learned from the AIDS-inducing stimulus were categorized according to group belonging, age and marital status. Data were processed by the IRaMuTeQ software, and analyzed using the Descending Hierarchical Classification, complementary specificities and factorial correspondence analysis techniques. The discussions were based on the three perspectives that encompass interculturality: relational, functional and critical. Results Three classes were formed: Biomedical Repertoire, Socio-emotional Repertoire and Behavioral Repertoire. Biomedical Repertoire was the most significant for both groups, being led by non-indigenous women; the socio-emotional and behavioral constituents were mostly represented by indigenous women. Final considerations and implications for practice in this interethnic setting, intercultural dialogue materializes in the exchange of a heterogeneous way of thinking-knowing-doing, which unfolds in the light of relational and functional interculturality, demonstrating embryonic movements towards critical interculturality.

Integrating the Soliya Connect Program into a Classroom Course on Critical Intercultural Communication

ABSTRACT This paper presents a two-year pedagogical, teacher-as-researcher, action research project at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Sousse, Tunisia, which investigates how the integration of the Soliya Connect Program, a facilitated dialogic online exchange programme, with a theoretical course on critical intercultural communication helped students develop critical interculturality. Despite some initial concern about the extra time commitment, students were unanimously positive about integrating the two aspects, claiming that the Connect Program helped them to develop criticality in real life, and that the online communication was much more effective because they participated with the critical perspective developed in class. The findings support the integration of theoretical and practical online components in developing students’ critical intercultural communication skills, and the use of action research to inform adjustments to both components in order to improve the outcomes.

Disrupting Colonial Tensions in Initial Language Teacher Education: Criteria Based on Critical Interculturality

Colombian English Language Teaching (ELT) is experiencing a paradigmatic change guided by the decolonial turn. This turn has enriched the debate about the implementation of a bilingual policy in Colombia, its impact on languages otherthan English, the purposes of learning English in the country, and English teacher practices and identities. This article shares the results of a critical ethnography that collected data from students and teacher educators from elt preparation programs and institutional and legal documents. Results indicate that, in Colombian elt, there are six discursive tensions representing coloniality. These are (a) English teachers as instructors or as educators; (b) native or non-native English speakers; (c) poor image of foreign language teachers as opposed to an idealized language teacher; (d) instrumental or cognitive and intercultural purposes for learning English; (e) emphasis on disciplinary knowledge or on interdisciplinary knowledge; and (f ) division or integration between theory and practice. To counter these tensions, a set of criteria are proposed. These criteria are: (a) elt preparation graduates are professionals in language pedagogy; (b) they are multilingual educated teachers; (c) they are well-rounded professional educators; (d) English is a means of recognizing diversity; (e) elt preparation programs embrace interdisciplinarity as a decolonizing option; and (f ) ELT preparation programs promote praxis. To conclude, the criteria proposed aim to shift initial language teacher education from an instrumental vision to a reflexive one, considering what is being learned, how, with whom, in what contexts, and the reasons that justify it.

Beyond ethnocentric perspectives in Spanish schools: Rethinking inclusion, the curriculum, and subjectivity

AbstractIn this paper, we examine how schools in Catalonia (Spain) are responding to the needs of migrant students by challenging the limitations of the curriculum. The paper presents some of the findings of an ongoing project titled Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe (MiCREATE). It is based on 31 semi‐structured interviews and 6 focus groups conducted with 78 participants (teachers, school representatives, and community members such as child psychologists, social workers, and other collaborators) from six state primary and secondary schools in Catalonia (Spain). Analysis of the interviews showed that Spain still has a monolithic conception of the curriculum, with Eurocentrism and ethnocentrism at its core. Nonetheless, school staff are producing pedagogical practices that challenge this position in order to respond to the needs of migrant students. We argue that it is necessary to consider other frames of reference such as critical interculturality, decolonial perspectives, and critical cosmopolitanisms in order to create collective and multiple experiences of belonging that go beyond the dominant cultural identity.

Considering the Basotho indigenous education and school system as resources for peace-building education in Lesotho

Lesotho faces political, economic, social, cultural, religious, institutional and interpersonal violence, a situation that prompted the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to introduce a peace-building education program. This indigenous auto-ethnography inquiry arose as the result of the investigator’s realisation that the UNESCO strategy to establish peace education in Lesotho is an exclusive, narrow approach based on the formal Western education system. While UNESCO’s initiative to instil a culture of peace via education is commendable considering the seriousness of the violence in Lesotho, the article contends that the approach excludes many out-of-school youth from learning about developing a culture of peace. The article also reveals some characteristics associated with the Western educational system that contribute to its inability to incorporate all eligible groups in peace-building education. Guided by the theoretical framework of critical interculturality, this article highlighted the Basotho lebollo education system as having the ability to extend peace-building education beyond the confines of Western schooling and education to include out-of-school adolescents. The compatibility of the lebollo school system with peace-building education was proved by its indigenous epistemology and pedagogy. The article recommends a nonviolent strategy devoid of colonial violence and based on mutual respect that can bring lebollo on board for peace-building education, as has happened in response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.Transdisciplinarity Contribution: This paper contributes to the broad debate that Western formal education ensnared in colonial power structures, has difficulty meeting the educational needs of the African child, despite its noble intentions. Using Basotho indigenous education system as a framework for calling for recognition of indigenous education, the paper makes the case for peacebuilding education as a potential model for indigenous education.

Interculturality and Internationalisation in a Swedish Teacher Education Programme

The concepts of interculturality and internationalisation have gained prominence in Swedish teacher education in general. This is a direct response to intensified migration, mobility and demographic shifts in contemporary, typically Western, societies. However there remains confusion and lack of clarity about what these mean both as a policy, and in practice, given that interculturality is a polysemic concept, used in different ways in different contexts. This article explores these concepts through a case study involving document analysis (curricula, study plan, syllabi, required reading lists) in an early childhood education programme within a Swedish university. The findings are further discussed with the support of analytical concepts from the field of critical interculturality in education. The research found that even though the concepts are widely discussed in general educational discourse, they are poorly represented and problematised in the course documents.