Psychology Chair Colloquium

Intercultural Education in Europe:
A 'Ghost Model' for School Practice
Massimiliano Tarozzi, Unviersity of Trento, Italy
12PM - 1:15PM
October 8, 2009
Pigott Auditorium

In the last two decades, Europe has developed its responses to the increasing presence of immigrant students in schools. In particular, ‘Intercultural Education’ is now considered by the European Union as the official approach to be used in school for the integration of immigrant students and ethnic minority groups.

However, despite the attempt of EU to define a common policy and shared practices, each European country has developed its own approach. In this paper, the different approaches attempting to define school policies and practices will be sketched. In particular Assimilationism, Multiculturalism, Segregation will be briefly addressed as forebears of the Intercultural model.

Moreover, there is a significant gap between the ‘official’ educational model for inclusion and what teachers and schools actually practice. In other words, although teachers should have an intercultural model to organize their pedagogy with immigrant pupils, a phenomenological research on the meaning of intercultural education reveals that they seems do not have a clear, shared frame of reference, about how to promote integration. Hence intercultural education actually works as a ghost model.

Finally, on the basis of the critiques of the intercultural approach the contribution to the European debate from a critical multicultural education approach and vice versa will be outlined.

Biography

Massimiliano Tarozzi is currently associate professor of Qualitative Research Methods, at Faculty of Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy, where he teaches also in the areas of social and intercultural education. He is founding director of the Masters degree in “Research Methodology in Education” and Coordinator of Qualitative Research Methods Area within the PhD School in Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento. He is Editor of “Encyclopaideia. Journal of Phenomenology and Education”, former chairman and member of the Board of the Encyclopaideia Study Center (now Piero Bertolini Study Center for Phenomenology and Education) . After a degree in Philosophy and one in Education at the University of Bologna, he completed his PhD in Education at the same University. He has been principal investigator of more than 10 qualitative research in the last 8 years, mainly in the field of Intercultural/multicultural education. In addition to 35 scientific articles, including 10 in international peer review journal, he has written or edited a dozen of  books  (including Che cos’è la Grounded theory [What is grounded theory], Roma: Carocci, 2008), Cittadinanza interculturale [Intercultural citizenship], Firenze: 2005 and Phenomenology and Human Science Today (Eds. With L. Mortari, Zetabooks, in press). He has recently translated The Discovery of grounded theory, by B. Glaser & A. Strauss (Roma: Armando, 2009).

Items of Interest

• Download Flyer
• Curriculum Vitae 
• Book Cover: Cittadinanza interculturale. Esperienza educativa come agire politico
• Book Cover: Che cos'è la grounded theory 
• Book Cover: Educare alla cittadinanza. comunità e diritti 

More Information

Please contact Rebecca Severson at
(206) 296-5400 or severson@seattleu.edu