Preparing Educators and Researchers for Multicultural/Intercultural Education

Abstract

The ChallengesImmigration is not a recent development in European societies, and the same applies to cultural diversity.Cultural pluralism and immigration are reinforced nowadays by globalization and internationalization; therefore, young people in Europe will be called upon in their adult lives to live in conditions of cultural pluralism, irrespective of population movements caused by immigration.Immigration continues to gain more attention, since it is indeed a growing phenomenon in the European arena: at least 10% of the school population at age 15 within the EU countries was either born abroad or both his/her parents were born in another country.In some countries, such as Ireland, Italy and Spain the percentage of school students born in another country has multiplied three or four times since 2000.A further crucial challenge for the European continent is currently set by the recent refugee crisis and, at the same time, the education of refugee children constitutes a major global demand.However, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 3.5 million refugee children aged 5 to 17 were not able to attend school in 2016.In particular, about 1.5 million refugees did not go to elementary school, while 2 million adolescents did not attend secondary education (UNHCR, 2017).In other words, this clearly has a dramatic impact on their right to education, which would help them to lead fulfilling and useful lives.In this context, imperative orientations for the European education systems include key objectives, such as the development of a young generation, which respects human rights and is well-placed to live in open, democratic and pluralistic societies.This issue is of major importance, if the challenges posed by the arrival of a large number of immigrants and refugees, along with the alarming strengthening of nationalism, intolerance and racism in recent years, are taken into consideration.Recognizing this necessity, the European Parliament recently initiated the study "Teaching Common Values in Europe", Anastasia Kesidou -9789004411944 Downloaded from Brill.

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