Missing links between intercultural education and anthropogenic climate change?

ABSTRACT

How and why should intercultural education address anthropogenic climate change? The paper argues that anthropogenic climate change threatens biocultural diversity, leading to linguistic and species extinction and discusses the twofold preservation of cultural and biological diversity. The paper starts with a limited analysis of the research discourse from 2000 to 2019 on the climate crisis contained in the journal Intercultural Education. Looking for eventual missing links in the research discourse, the paper argues for a need to combine more explicitly both diversities and introduces Escobar’s call for alternative political ontology (2016, 2018), in order to reflect further on a Western situated posture. As a position paper, the article points to the need for developing a new line of research within the field of intercultural education (IE) based on the two intertwined dimensions of diversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• biocultural diversity
• intercultural education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. (http://www.nfpf.net/?page_id=9).

2. There are around 7000 languages today (https://www.ethnologue.com/about)

3. For more information about Terralingua go to https://terralingua.org/

4. For instance in the database of the journal of Intercultural Education, 78 occurrences are found when searching for indigenous and bilingual (Search results | Taylor & Francis Online (tandfonline.com) accessed 21 January 2020).

5. Accessed from https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=ceji20 October 11, 2019.

6. In the journal database, 10 occurrences can be found combining in the search indigenous, sustainability, sustainable development and climate change (Search results | Taylor & Francis Online (tandfonline.com) accessed January 21 2021). However, most of the articles do not explicitly include these keywords together. As for indigenous alone 207 occurrences are found (Search results | Taylor & Francis Online (tandfonline.com) accessed January 21 2021).

7. Accessed from https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=ceji20, October 11. 2019.

8. I used these keywords in the database search: climate change, environment, environmental, global issue, warming, sustainability, biological, biocultural. Some articles could deal with some of these keywords explicitly but in another context, for example learning climate or learning environment. These articles were not included in the study.

9. ZAD, zone à défendre” [zone to defend].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frédérique Brossard Børhaug

Frédérique Brossard Børhaug is Professor of Education at VID Specialized University, Stavanger in Norway. Trilingual in French, English and Norwegian, she holds a Ph.D. in education from the University of Oslo, Norway. She conducts research on Ethics and Anti-Racist Education in French and Norwegian multicultural school contexts, on the Human Development and Capability Approach (HDCA), on Inclusion of Minority Youth at School, on VaKE-didactics (Values and Knowledge Education) in intercultural teaching and on Climate Change in Education. A key focus is the critical reflection on one’s own cultural position and the fostering of complex intercultural and anti-racist value thinking that can counteract the reproduction of unfair privileges, and lead to more inclusive educational practices for all in respect with the nature.