Implications for the major players

- Policymakers, from the European to local and regional levels, assume an essential role in linking educational policy to the broader issue of intercultural dialogue within a society. While policymakers must contend with such issues as equal participation and inclusion in the realms of politics, economics, and culture, it should be borne in mind that the project does not put into question the respective choice of each country to include or not include formal religious instruction in public schools.

- Educators and educational researchers are crucial in managing the religious dimension of school curriculum. Their role in examining the quality and efficiency of curricula places them in the foreground of connecting intercultural education with education for democratic citizenship.

- Teachers are evidently the project’s primary targets in stimulating intercultural and interfaith dialogue, as well as reaching out to parents and the surrounding community. Specifically, implications for teachers include the adoption of a “child-centred approach,” the improvement/exchange of teaching materials and strategies, and engaging in training for the religious dimension of intercultural education.

Intercultural Education: Past and Present

Promoting intercultural dialogue represents one of the Council of Europe’s endeavours since the 1970’s. Initial projects emphasized the integration of minorities in an effort to ensure equality in education and encourage intercultural exchange within the broader community. The later undertaking of “Democracy, Minority Human Rights” from 1993-1997 called attention to diversity within the contexts of language, history, geography and religion while laying the cornerstones for integrating intercultural education with “civic education” and “education for democratic citizenship.”

European Potential

Intercultural Education and the Challenge of Religious Diversity and Dialogue in Europe, an innovative approach to dealing with the complexities of multiculturalism in an enlarged Europe, will stress tolerance, equality and ethics as core values promoted by the Council of Europe. The project represents a bridge from multiculturalism, “the natural state of society that cannot but be diverse,” and interculturalism, “the interactive dimension and the capacity of entities to build common projects, to assume shared responsibilities and to create common identities.”

Batelaan, Pieter. “Intercultural Education in the 21^st century: learning to live together.”

(http://www.coe.int/T/e/Cultural_Co-operation/Education/Intercultural_education/Overview.asp)

Writing

Write a discursive essay “The role of religion in today’s society” (350 words).

Unit 2. Youth subcultures

Pre-reading

1. What do you think ‘youth subculture’ is? Give your own definition of ‘youth subculture’. Find the definition in a dictionary and compare the two definitions you have got. What is/are the difference(s) in the two definitions?

2. Why do young people need to belong so much?

3. What definition in your opinion can be given to ‘youth movement’? What is the difference between ‘youth subculture’ and ‘youth movement’?

4. Read the below-given list of youth subcultures. Are there any subculture(s) you know about? Give a brief talk on it (them). Close your speech with expressing your attitude to the subculture.