The training of professionals for a global world remains a challenge for Higher Education. From an intercultural educational approach, this study describes and analyses two educational proposals in Italy and Spain, which have helped to develop students' intercultural competences, thanks to a teaching framework based on participatory strategies. A…

Europe has recently seen a massive multi-ethnic influx of migrants, marred by high social costs of inter-ethnic confrontation. This has prompted scholars to develop training schemes to improve the social skills needed to cope with this situation. Decades of studies have acknowledged empathy as a crucial variable in the development of positive…

The health and social crisis caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has had an especially strong impact on the academic prospects of the most vulnerable populations in society. This paper focuses on the consequences of the current crisis in terms of their potential to negatively impact school disengagement and early school-leaving rates. First,…

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between teacher beliefs pertaining to cultural diversity and their actual teaching activities. Using a model-based approach, this study looks at beliefs regarding diversity issues at both the theoretical and empirical levels. At the theoretical level, we attempt to systematise the many…

The present study examined what impact various constellations of acculturation orientations of immigrant students and their teachers have on the students' school adjustment. For this purpose, the study analysed the acculturation orientations of 1106 5th graders and their class teachers in Switzerland. Using multiple regression analysis, we found…

The present study explores the internationalisation of secondary schools. It focuses on the assessment of the intercultural competence (IC) of returnees who participated in an annual study-abroad programme offered by the Italian educational association Intercultura (a non-profit organisation). The precise aim of this research is to find possible…

Many universities in different parts of the world are seeking to enhance the cultural diversity of their staff and student body and yet repeated studies have shown that good integration can be difficult to achieve. Although several studies have examined the reasons why such integration is difficult, there has been very little research into the…

The study presented in this article aims to explore if and how intercultural learning may take place in students' class interaction. It is grounded in the assumption that interculturality is not a clear-cut feature inherent to interactions occurring when individuals with presumed different linguistic and cultural/national backgrounds talk to each…

This study reports on students' and teachers' perspectives on a programme designed to develop Erasmus students' intercultural understanding prior to going abroad. We aimed to understand how students and their teachers perceived pre-departure materials in promoting their awareness of key concepts related to interculturality (e.g., essentialism,…

Acknowledging the European political commitment to Roma education and the research in this field, my article deals with the experience of education of a"Sinti" "minority" (The terms "minority" and "majority" will be used in this article, according to the meaning that is given to them within Anthropology and…

Following the guidelines given in the "White Book on Intercultural Dialogue," this article reflects on whether the use of the Complex Instruction (CI) model would create the conditions for a more equal dialogue in educational contexts. An ethnographic study was carried out in four Italian primary school classrooms to explore how this…

The issue of diversity, in its broadest sense, is discussed here in its relation to social cohesion, cross-cultural relations, ingroup-outgroup relations and educational interventions. The main thesis of the paper is that real social cohesion in an ingroup rests on the acknowledgment of and the dialog with the diversities of the members of the…

The present study adopts a multilingual approach to analysing the standardized test results of primary school immigrant children living in the bi-/multilingual context of South Tyrol, Italy. The standardized test results are from the Invalsi test administered across Italy in 2009/2010. In South Tyrol, several languages are spoken on a daily basis…

The article focuses on some findings of a comparative study carried out by a network of scholars and researchers who are active in the field of intercultural education in the European context in the main "old immigration countries" (United Kingdom, France and Germany), "new immigration countries" (Italy, Spain and Greece) and…

Both in Europe and in North America, teacher education plays a key role in guaranteeing an inclusive school for all and, in particular, is crucial for preparing teachers working with diverse students. However, because of the lack of consistent empirical research in this field, the elements that qualify an effective initial training for teachers…