From the multilingual to the intercultural in the current German political, academic and pedagogical discourse

ABSTRACT

The words multicultural and intercultural are not universal signifiers, as Guilherme and Dietz recently stated in this Journal (2015 Vol.10/1). This article therefore attempts to be culturally conscious scholarship, and draws a picture of the connotations of these expressions in the recent academic and public/political and discourse in Germany in the mirror of the recent intercultural program developments in German academia. Without attempting to provide a concise analysis of the multi-faceted scholarship and policy papers, the article focuses on the interconnectedness and the discrepancy between the political and the academic discourse. The paper points toward a possible integration of these two areas by suggesting a pedagogical approach that explains intercultural through the arts.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiculturality
• multiculturalism
• interculturality
• cultural heterogeneity
• transculturality
• German context

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on the contributor

Ivett Rita Guntersdorfer is the founder and program director of the Intercultural Communication Certificate Program at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. She finished her doctoral thesis in 2011 at the University of California in Los Angeles. She joined the Institut für Interkulturelle Kommunikation in 2014, where she is currently leading the Intercultural Communication Certificate Program for master students, and coordinating research projects on intercultural communication. Her recent articles are on the topics of internationalization of higher education in Europe, intercultural competence, academic intercultural program development, and intercultural (tele)collaborations.