Raising intercultural awareness in European University Alliances: opportunities, challenges and limitations
Résumé
In today’s interdependent world, being interculturally aware is of utmost importance. As this effort is not an innate capability, education has a key role to play in supporting this societal objective. In higher education, European University Alliances (EUAs) currently stand out as good candidates to raise intercultural awareness among students since in this organisational model languages and cultures are central to the learning opportunities offered. The challenge which, however, arises within this framework lies in identifying pedagogical solutions likely to help students overcome the cross-cultural communication difficulties EUAs’ affordances are likely to create for them. This chapter proposes a reflection on this topic and argues that harnessing the second-language teaching and learning field to support the implementation of initiatives relating to global citizenship education (GCE) could provide a solution. To do so, it first defines what EUAs are and explains why deploying language-/culture-based GCE initiatives could prove relevant to raise students’ intercultural awareness in such settings. It then explores the implications this effort may engender in EUAs regarding instructional design, pedagogical engineering and course content. It concludes with a critical discussion on the opportunities, challenges and limitations language-/culture-based GCE initiatives are set to bring in their wake in EUAs.