Capabilities for intercultural dialogue

Abstract

The capabilities approach offers a valuable analytical lens for exploring the challenge and complexity of intercultural dialogue in contemporary settings. The central tenets of the approach, developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, involve a set of humanistic goals including the recognition that development is a process whereby people's freedoms are expanded, and in so doing, increasing the capabilities of individuals to lead valuable lives. How the construct of capabilities can be seen to work in practice is demonstrated here through a description and presentation of findings from an insider-practitioner case study concerning the teaching and learning of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in higher education and based on a critical cosmopolitan pedagogical approach. Evidence from the study indicates that cosmopolitan citizenship learning has a valued place in an ESOL multicultural classroom in which intercultural dialogue is fostered. A proposal is made to use the capabilities approach as a normative framework for social justice in the field of foreign language and intercultural education.

潜在能力アプローチは現代の異文化間対話が直面する問題やその複雑な構造を分析するための切り口を提供する。センとM.ヌスバウムの提唱したこのアプローチは、発見的ゴールを中心にしている。その発見的ゴールに含まれるものは、発展が人間の自由の拡大であり、それによって自己の潜在能力が増加する認識することなどである。本稿では、現実には潜在能力がどのように構築されるのかを大学での英語教育関係者および批評的国際教育アプローチの知見を元に論証した。その結果、世界的シティズンシップへの学習法は、異文化間の対話が発生する多文化教室で行われる英語教育にも応用されうることが明らかになった。本稿は外国語および異文化教育において社会正義に関する規範的枠組みを潜在能力アプローチとして使用することを提言する。

Keywords:

• agency
• capabilities
• cosmopolitan
• critical pedagogy
• freedom
• functionings

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers of this paper for assisting me in making my arguments more robust. I am also indebted to the students at the heart of this study and to Prof. Melanie Walker for guidance throughout my doctoral studies on which this paper is based.

Notes on contributors

Dr Veronica Crosbie is a lecturer in ESOL and Intercultural Studies in Dublin City University. Her research interests include capabilities approach, cosmopolitan citizenship, critical pedagogy and intercultural competence. She coordinated the Lingua 2-funded LOLIPOP in 2004–2007. She is currently interested in developing a capability-based curriculum for language and intercultural learning.

Notes

1. Names and titles are anonymised, where appropriate, throughout this study.

2. CLIL is a pedagogical approach adopted for the acquisition of a foreign language in which the target language is used to teach content (Coyle, 2007; Marsh, 2003).

3. CEFR levels were devised by the Council of Europe (2001) to create a shared approach to the teaching, learning and assessment of languages across Europe.

4. The ELP is a Council of Europe initiative aimed to assist with the development of language learners’ autonomy through a set of interconnected activities designed to foster self-assessment. It allows the portfolio bearer the opportunity to showcase language and intercultural learning to language professionals, employers and peers.

5. LOLIPOP was a European Commission Socrates-funded language-learning project (2004–2007) involving a consortium of 12 partners engaged in the task of creating an interactive, online version of the ELP with an enhanced intercultural dimension: <http://lolipop-portfolio.eu/>.