Interpreting Intercultural Education In Terms Of The Types Of Cultural Differences

With the acceleration of urbanization, globalization and informatization, the cultural diversity has constituted the basic reality of contemporary society. How should education deal with this kind of cultural diversity? Some international organizations and nation-states have gradually formed the concepts and measures of intercultural education on the basis of original multicultural education. In this field, the researchers have also launched multi-angle, multifaceted explorations. But these explorations, to some extent, have neglected the diversities of types of cultural differences behind intercultural education, as well as the substantial impact on educational policies and practices of intercultural education brought by such diversities. Therefore, this paper will start from the types of cultural differences, describing and analyzing strategies and measures of intercultural education in purposes, policies, practices.According to the choices of policies of some international organizations and countries, this paper summarizes and chooses race, religion, nationality, immigration, indigenous peoples as the main aspects to differentiate different types of cultural differences, and each of them is discussed respectively in this essay.Among them, intercultural education based on ethnic differences, aiming at eliminating discrimination and seeking equality, has protected racial equality in laws, established racial-integrated schools in practices and emphasized non-discriminatory in teachings; intercultural education based on religious differences, aiming at eliminating barriers to tolerance and understanding, has been devoted in creating a safe atmosphere, carrying out selective religious curriculums; intercultural education based on ethnic differences, aiming at opposing confrontations to achieve unity, has been devoted in safeguarding the rights of minorities in law, promoting national integration in practice, emphasizing that teachers should have knowledge of multi-ethnic; intercultural education based on immigrants, aiming at opposing the assimilation of immigrants to seek integration, has gradually completied the change from retaining language to promoting cultural integration, from assimilation to interact fusion; intercultural education based on indigenous peoples, aiming at removing repression and sharing progress, has been devoted in safeguarding the rights of indigenous peoples, establishing specialized indigenous schools, training teachers relying on professional institutions.Although these types of intercultural education have different target locations, policy promotions, and other aspects of school practices, they still have some things in common:(1) their basic premise is to have a common national identity;(2)policies and regulations play a leading and promoting role;(3) school practices seeking integration and interaction of courses;(4) they all focus on shaping teachers with inclusive characters;(5)they all actively explore home-school cooperation, seeking supports in the social dimension.However, intercultural education also faces some challenges:first, the ambiguity of the cultural value judgments; second, the irreconcilable of types of cultural differences; third, the complexity of types of cultural differences. Nevertheless, international explorations of intercultural education also have important implications on China in dealing with cultural diversities, such as clear the cultural differences in terms of the type, comprehensive education policies, school practices, teacher training and so on, advancing the overall intercultural education to carry out.