New means and new meanings for multicultural education in a global–Italian context

Abstract

In today’s multicultural world, digital tools may become a powerful means to building a culture of dialogue that supports ‘culturally responsive’ teaching within imaginative multicultural learning environments. Students can develop global competencies, learning more about others’ and their own culture as part of their personal development. Our paper presents the experience of Rete Dialogues, a network of Italian state schools that have created a professional learning community and enacted the international project Generation Global. Through technologies such as videoconferences and online communities, students, supported by their teachers, can meet peers from various cultures. After referencing the development of the notion of multiculturalism, we interpret our experience through the lenses of Banks’ five dimensions. We then focus on a ‘teamblogging’ initiative that involved 2000 students and over 200 teachers, discussing examples from students’ digital dialogues and brainstorming next steps in the practice of multicultural education.

Keywords:

• Culturally responsive teaching
• multicultural education
• learning community
• digital writing
• intergenerational learning
• dialogical skills

Notes

1. The terms ‘multicultural’ and ‘intercultural’ are used here as synonyms. ‘Multicultural education’ is used in the US, while ‘intercultural’ is more common in Europe to stress a more interactive approach, where different cultures are brought into contact and are in dialogue.

2. Definition reported in official documents.

3. For a description of the activities see https://retedialogues.it

4. For a detailed overview of Generation Global see https://generation.global/

5. The autorship of the article follows an alphabetical order.

6. This article is the outcome of the collaboration of the authors. However, in order to ascribe responsibility, we declare that chapters are authored as follows: Barzanò, G.: chapt. 1, 4, 5 (text); Cortiana, P.: chapt. 6.1; Jamison, I.: chapt. 2; Lissoni, M.: chapt. 6.2; Raffio, L.: chapt. 3, 5 (table). Concluding remarks are co-authored.