Intercultural matters : fiction and cultural identity

Abstract

Socrates Programme 57087 - CP- 3- 2000- 1 - UK - Comenius-C31This booklet evolved from a European Teacher Training Intensive Course on “Fiction and Cultural Identity”, which took place during 2000 and 2001. The course, taught by teacher trainers from several European countries, had as its aim to explore, to compare, to analyse, through fiction, through cultural theories and theories of education an area of practice – literature, through which cultural difference, ordering and association are produced. Developed under the banner of program Comenius financed by the European Union, and with a view to promote Intercultural Education, the course had as its further aims the following: (a)to acknowledge the national and cultural diversity of Europe within its common aims and political/economical union; (b)to promote critical attitudes towards prejudices, stereotypes, social and cultural injustice; (c)to develop respect for those we see as ‘the other’ and understand the meaning of ‘difference’; (d)to develop competence for an European citizenship, i.e. an ‘interdependent citizenship’