The increasing cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity that characterizes many European societies is particularly evident in high-complexity educational contexts. Prisons, therapeutic communities, reception centers, and adult education programs are increasingly composed of participants with vastly different origins, experiences, and cultural references. In such settings, intercultural education is not an option—it is a pedagogical, ethical, and political necessity.
Educating in intercultural contexts does not mean “managing diversity” as though it were a problem. It means recognizing otherness as a fundamental dimension of the educational experience, and the encounter between differences as an opportunity for mutual learning. As Abdallah-Pretceille (2006) states, interculturality is not a set of techniques to be applied, but a relational stance, grounded in the deconstruction of stereotypes, active listening, and the co-construction of meaning.
In vulnerable contexts, differences are not only cultural: they intersect with social fragility, migratory trauma, educational discontinuity, and economic marginalization. Educators operate in environments where cultural reference points are multiple, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting. In these spaces, an intercultural approach requires flexibility, symbolic sensitivity, and a deep willingness to negotiate meaning. It is not about “integrating” the other into existing models, but about building new shared references together.
Dewey (1916) reminds us that education is always a relationship with the environment, and that authentic learning arises from lived and problematized experience. In intercultural groups, this relationship is mediated by different languages, codes, and memories. For this reason, intercultural education cannot be neutral: it is a process of recognition, of validating personal stories, and of opening to otherness. Only in a learning environment that views diversity as a resource—and not as an obstacle—can genuinely transformative paths emerge.
At the European level, policy recommendations have long emphasized the importance of fostering intercultural competences in both adults and professionals. The European Framework of Key Competences (2006, 2018) includes “cultural awareness and expression” and “social and civic competences” among its priorities—understood as the ability to interact respectfully and constructively in multicultural environments. But beyond official directives lies the practical challenge: how do we make this competence tangible and lived in settings marked by distrust, language barriers, and traumatic experiences?
The answer also involves a rethinking of pedagogy. Working in groups, proposing symbolic exercises, using the body and the arts as expressive channels, and engaging storytelling and listening as tools for shared identity-building—these are all strategies that allow participants to move through difference rather than around it. As Mezirow (2000) suggests, it is only through encounters with different worldviews that cognitive restructuring and transformative learning are activated.
Intercultural education in high-complexity settings is, ultimately, a political act. It affirms the right to speak, to be recognized, and to participate fully. It is not enough to avoid conflict: we must build spaces where plurality is legitimate, imaginable, and shareable. Where each person is seen not as the bearer of an “other culture,” but as a complex subject, in relation.
References
- Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (2006). L’éducation interculturelle. PUF.
- Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. Macmillan.
- Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress. Jossey-Bass.
- European Commission. (2006, 2018). Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning.
Authored by: SKILL UP
