A School for the Other: Philosophy of Dialogue and Dialogic Pedagogy in Intercultural Education

Abstract

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how Joanna Rutkowiak’s concept of educational dialogue representing dialogic pedagogy can help in the accomplishment of the goals of intercultural education. The author’s attention is focused particularly on globalizing thinking and hermeneutically understood conversation, which can be important factors leading to the cognitive transformation of an individual accomplished by taking different points of view into consideration and including them in one’s cognitive horizon. Such an approach may contribute to the development of particular teacher attitudes which support intercultural upbringing. These attitudes can be formed by transforming teachers’ dispositions and increasing their self-awareness in areas such as worldview held, beliefs, values and manifested behaviors. This self-awareness is the key factor in a multicultural environment, which is an area of increased tensions and conflicts between culturally different values, norms and interpretations of reality. The author argues that teachers play the key role in intercultural education, because effective fostering of openness and tolerance towards Other depends on their efforts. Educators should play the role of negotiators between differing points of view, translators of cultural otherness and exponents of openness and tolerance. They will not be able to achieve this goal without increased awareness of their cultural background and a high level of self-awareness.