Language and Intercultural Education

Dr. Alan Bruce

Mayte Martin

ULS Dublin

ICT 4LL Conference

Florence, Italy

13 November 2014.

overview

• Connection between language learning, intercultural education and lifelong learning

• Languages in historic and social space

• Conceptual space vs. economic and political advantage

• Language: culture, conquest, assimilation

Languages and social power

Language and status

• Alienating and degrading some social groups

• Power and domination of ‘superior’ language

• Tool of domination and repression

• Subtle, unconscious and insidious use of language to act as badge of superiority/inferiority

• Awareness of what language represents

• Looking at the Irish language

Language and culture

• Socio-cultural knowledge

• Intercultural education and social cohesion

• From mobility to globalized markets

• Survival in the migratory world

• Asserting identity – and rights

Mobility in Europe?

Impact of migration

• Numerous languages spoken by new clients overwhelm services.

• Lack of linguistic access can be discriminatory

• Cultural competence in a changing Ireland

• Training, awareness and integration – the Irish journey

contested identity

• Contested space – uncertain identity

• Inclusion in what?

• From ‘non-national’ to citizen

• Legacies of inferiority – the colonial impact

• Uncertain welcome – crisis

• Frame of mind regarding reception of the Other

• Reality of two pre-existing languages

Irish linguistic map

Tracing irish

• Ancient Celtic language

• Rich bardic tradition, poetry and literary heritage

• Dispossessed Gaelic aristocracy in 17th century

• Replaced as language of Church and governance

• Criminalization and mark of discrimination

• Impact of Great Famine 1846-49

Policy in crisis: the 19th Century

National School system (1831)Resistance and segregationIdentity and revolutionThe tidal wave of emigrationPartition and religion

Understanding the colony

• Contradiction and ambivalence: ownership and identity

• Albert Memmi – colonizer and colonized

• Guilt, humiliation and long memory

• Derivative imitation and conflict

the slights, the wrongs,

the long indignities

the stubborn core within each heart defies

John Hewitt

The murder machine

• Intersection with official schooling system

• Learning by rote and memorization

• Terminal examinations, equity and academic streaming

• Vocational Education Act (1943)

• Towards a new vision: language, ICT and primary reform

• Inward migration and emancipatory learning

Diversity imperatives

• Radical re-structuring of world economy

• Interconnected information/communication

• Differential access to resources

• Professional competence

• Dealing with transformational change

• Ensuring recognition and respect

opportunities

• Agreed definition of multicultural

• Adjustment and accommodation

• Melting pot or mosaic

• Separate development

• Beliefs, values and practices

• Symbols, language and behaviour

Challenges

• Mutual interaction or structured exclusion?

• Community values or communal rituals?

• Linkage to realities or past models?

• Shared memories or shared hatreds?

Interculturalism

• Interaction

• Empathy

• Communication

• Knowledge

• Removal of prejudice

• Linked themes: gender, power, violence, values

Thank you

Alan Bruce

abruce@ulsystems.com

Mayte Martín

maytecalvo@gmail.com

ULS: DUBLIN – HELSINKI – AMSTERDAM - CHICAGO

www.ulsystems.com