UNESCO Futures of Education Update

“UNESCO”

Negotiating the Future of Education: The UNESCO’s Futures of Education-initiative and the OECD’s Future of Education and Skills 2030-initiative, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

Researchers at Humboldt University (Germany) are studying the entire process of the UNESCO Futures of Education initiative, and they contacted CID to learn more about our involvement in that project. They were interested in our participation for 2 reasons: our focus group was uncommonly diverse, and we proposed a 10th point of action, rather than just discussing the 9 points that the draft proposal outlined. We suggested that

Learning to live together requires intercultural dialogue

and produced a poster showing the relationship between their 9 ideas and our 10th.

Here are further details about the research project:

“In the project “Negotiating the Futures of Education”, we want to analyse how visions of the future of education are negotiated and contested, looking at how narratives about the future of education are constructed by UNESCO and OECD in two currently running projects, Futures of education (UNESCO) and Future of education and skills 2030 (OECD). Our main focus is on understanding the micropolitical “backstage” processes involved in constructing these narratives. We are particularly interested in whether and how formerly marginalized voices and groups are integrated in the process and whether and in which ways these challenge reigning “orthodoxies” in the liberal education script. The project employs a qualitative approach, relying particularly on ethnographic methods, narrative and discourse analysis.”

When the report appears, this post will be updated to include a link.

NOTE: The Center for Intercultural Dialogue held three focus groups as part of the information gathering stage of the Futures of Education project, preparing what we learned as a report for UNESCO, in 2021. A few months later they requested concrete examples from around the world, and we prepared an addendum.

Villanova U: Facilitator of Intergroup Dialogue (USA)

“Job

Facilitator of Intergroup Dialogue Program, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA. Deadline: open until filled, posted 4 April 2023.

The Facilitator of Intergroup Dialogue reports to the Directors of Intergroup Dialogue and is primarily responsible for facilitating sustained dialogue for-credit courses involving topics on identity, justice and inclusion. This position is responsible for generating, collecting, organizing, and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data to assess the Intergroup Dialogue Center. This position effectively implements methods to assess the dialogue program and increase performance across all levels of the program.

U of the Arts London: Intercultural Communication Trainer (UK)

“Job

Intercultural Communication Trainer, University of the Arts, London, UK. Deadline: 8 May 2023.

This is an exciting opportunity within the Language Centre at University of the Arts London to innovate and develop the intercultural and communication training, support and resources provided for staff and students participating in Online at UAL. Around half of UAL’s students join us from outside the UK and the Language Centre provides language and intercultural skills for staff and students across the University, adapting its services in response to changes in the academic portfolio and needs of the community. Online at UAL is a significant current development that will provide courses of study through online only modes. The support will be varied in form, with asynchronous digital resources featuring alongside workshops, consultations and working-party collaborations.

As Intercultural Communication Trainer, you will work alongside course academic teams to create strategies for working with complex, sensitive, or controversial themes with diverse and dispersed cohorts and review and evaluate the effect and impact of support provided. As this is a new role within the existing Intercultural Communication Training Programme, and Online at UAL is in early stages of development, the size, shape and scope of this role will evolve.

Repair Cafes: Sustainability, Community, Intercultural Dialogue

Applied ICD

Repair Cafés, started in Amsterdam in 2009, now exist around the world, in over 2500 locations.

 

The explicit focus of a repair café is the circular economy (ensuring that objects are repaired rather than turned into trash). At the same time, such efforts build community among those who participate, introducing neighbors who might never have met otherwise. And the result is intercultural dialogue, as evidenced by the offer of a PHD Studentship to study “‘Repair Cafes’ as a way to build translocal networks and communities” at the University for the Creative Arts in the UK.

UNESCO Silk Roads Youth Research Grant 2023

“UNESCO”
Silk Roads Youth Research Grant, UNESCO, Paris, France. Deadline: 31 May 2023.

UNESCO calls on young women and men under the age of 35 to apply for the 2023 Silk Roads Youth Research Grant. The grant aims to mobilize young researchers for further study of the Silk Roads shared heritage. Twelve grants of US$10,000 will be awarded per research project.

The research needs to address specific issues relating to:

  • the shared heritage and plural identities developed along the Silk Roads,
    its internal diversity,
  • its potential in contemporary societies for creativity, intercultural dialogue, social cohesion, regional and international cooperation, and
  • ultimately sustainable peace and development.

ICA Regional Chapters: Indonesia, Nigeria, China, Kenya

ConferencesContractor, Noshir. (11 April 2023). President’s Column: The First Four: Writing a New Chapter in ICA’s International Efforts. International Communication Association Newsletter.

The International Communication Association has just established regional chapters in Indonesia, Nigeria, China, and Kenya. The ICA Indonesia Chapter was inaugurated at Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia on March 7, 2023. The ICA Nigeria Chapter was inaugurated on March 24, 2023, at the University of Port Harcourt. The ICA China Chapter was inaugurated on March 28 in Beijing at an event attended by the Deans and Directors of Communication programs at seven major universities in China, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, Renmin University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. And the ICA Kenya Chapter was inaugurated on April 5, 2023, at Daystar University, Nairobi. For details, see the article by ICA President Noshir Contractor.

Circus as Intercultural Encounter

Intercultural Pedagogy

Caravan Circus Network. (9 February 2023). Circus as intercultural encounter: The completion of a 3-year project by Caravan Social Circus Network. Circus Talk.

One of the main insights we want to share is our own approximation to intercultural encounters. That is we understand ‘working towards the intercultural encounter’ as a journey, as a process rather than a fixed state or a place we thrive to reach.

The Caravan Network project ‘Circus as Intercultural Encounter,’ 2019-2022, sought to promote intercultural dialogue and strengthen knowledge and acceptance of diversity in society by advancing the capacity of social circus trainers. The team behind the project, which included members from a wide range of countries, built upon Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Augosto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to design a new training program. The particularly nicely designed guidebook they prepared is intended to be adapted by other organizations for their own needs, and so would be a useful tool in teaching about intercultural competence more generally.

KC107 Interculturality Translated into Turkish

Key Concepts in ICDContinuing translations of Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, today I am posting KC107: Interculturality, which Mélodine Sommier and Malgorzata Lahti wrote for publication earlier this year, and which İçten Duygu Özbek has now translated into Turkish.

As always, all Key Concepts are available as free PDFs; just click on the thumbnail to download. Lists organized chronologically by publication date and number, alphabetically by concept in English, and by languages into which they have been translated, are available, as is a page of acknowledgments with the names of all authors, translators, and reviewers.

KC107 Interculturality_TurkishSommier, M., & Lahti, M. (2023). Interculturality [Turkish] (İ. D. Özbek, Trans.). Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 107. Available from: https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kc107-interculturality_turkish.pdf

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue publishes a series of short briefs describing Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue. Different people, working in different countries and disciplines, use different vocabulary to describe their interests, yet these terms overlap. Our goal is to provide some of the assumptions and history attached to each concept for those unfamiliar with it. As there are other concepts you would like to see included, send an email to the series editor, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. If there are concepts you would like to prepare, provide a brief explanation of why you think the concept is central to the study of intercultural dialogue, and why you are the obvious person to write up that concept.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

U Edinburgh: Language Education (UK)

“JobLecturer in Language Education, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences / Moray House School of Education and Sport / Institute for Language Education, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Deadline: 1 May 2023.

The Moray House School of Education and Sport is pleased to invite applications for the position of Lecturer in Language Education. The successful applicant will be expected to contribute to their highly successful Masters level teaching programmes (MSc TESOL, MSc Language Education, MSc Language and Intercultural Communication), to the supervision of doctoral students, and to secure research grants through our Languages, Interculturality and Literacies Thematic Research Hub aligned with REF high quality research outputs. The post requires a culturally sensitive vision that reflects a commitment to social justice and the provision of high-quality student experience.

 

UNU: Communications Associate (Japan)

“JobCommunications Associate, United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), Tokyo, Japan. Deadline: 2 May 2023.

The Communications Associate will promote UNU-IAS and its activities to raise visibility and impact, with a particular focus on target audiences in Japan. She/he will play a key role in implementing the communications strategy of UNU-IAS, with the overall goal of shaping, packaging, and delivering the institute’s products and expertise to maximize impact, effect positive change, and drive further demand for UNU-IAS work.

Under the general supervision of the UNU-IAS Director, and the direct supervision of the Manager of UNU-IAS Communications, the Communications Associate will perform the following tasks:
1. Manage Japanese-language content across the institute’s digital channels and printed products, ensuring coherence, quality, and consistent branding.
2. Support the implementation and further development of the institute’s communications strategy, targeting audiences in Japan.
3. Generate positive media coverage of UNU-IAS and its activities.
4. Facilitate internal communications and collaboration.