Intercultural education in Austria

Intercultural learning has become a key term in connection with the education of children with a non-German background in Austrian schools. Not only does this idea acknowledge that the diverse cultures exist side by side in our country, but that they get in touch and are principally of equal value. The basic intention is integration and not assimilation within our educational system. Children of migrants are to have the same opportunities as Austrian children.

The concept of intercultural education includes the social conditions based on migration and the living cultures of foreign families in the educational process of foreign and Austrian children. Intercultural education demands a new orientation in our schools: our own point of view and the one of the other culture must be connected, but the impulse to approach the other culture must be a mutual one, not just from the foreign culture to ours. (Cf. Boos-Nünning)

According to Boos-Nünning, there are four stages in the process of intercultural education:

1. Perception of the other culture and seeing one's own point of view as relative.
2. Tolerance for other cultures and the assumption of their meaningfulness as well as taking their manifestations and forms seriously.
3. Considering the other culture to be of equal value.
4. Only in this fourth stage is it possible to take over elements from the other culture into one's own culture and accept them.

An expectation of assimilation is not only unrealistic and inhuman, but also, considering the cultural richness and diversity of a society, unwanted. (Cf. Stoik, 11-12)

TASKS | STUDENTS INTRODUCTION | CONTENTS | INTRODUCTION | IMMIGRATION | MODELS | INTERCULTURAL LEARNING | CURICULUM | AUSTRIAN MODELS | CHILDRENS LITERATURE | FACTS AND FIGURES | BIBLIOGRAPHY