Prepared and submitted by Susanne Spieker, University of Hamburg (Germany), susannespieker@gmx.net Christian Ydesen, University of Aarhus (Denmark)/ University of Edinburgh (Great Britain), christianydesen@gmail.com Topic: The need to investigate and understand the phenomenon of intercultural education is of greater importance than ever. It is instigated by the manifestation of profound societal changes due to phenomena like globalisation and migration, generating new cultural patchworks all over the world. This development poses a considerable challenge for national educational systems. However, in the educational arena a majority of industrialised nation states have pursued a policy of limiting the cultural and ethnic complexity and variation. Consequently children, which are considered belonging to so to say ethnic minorities, are perceived as pedagogical and social problems since they lack the required cultural resources. It is the outset of this symposium that a historical approach to intercultural education presents an opportunity to pose new and interesting questions and gain a fuller understanding of intercultural education as a practice in contemporary societies. Often the presence of historical approaches is limited to the contextualization of empirical surveys in the field of intercultural education. And most frequently this contextualisation is related to nation state formation and its conceptions. In other words historical approaches often serve the purpose of upholding the national narratives about educational fields. Thus, the surveys focus on specific minority or migrant groups and their integration into nation states through specific educational approaches. Hence, independent historical research on intercultural education aimed at identifying footholds of comparison for recurring characteristics in order to investigate and understand the phenomenon of intercultural education is a rare occurrence within existing historiography.

The symposium explores the writing of history in this field of educational research – both from a methodological perspective and in practice. Papers address their topic historically and explicitly relate certain timeframes with places and socio-political contexts. Methodologies relate to research questions of the different authors. Some presenters outline the relation between intercultural education and the narration of nation states, in e.g. Italy and Denmark. Another author explores the intercultural as agent, where the encounter with other social groups had an impact on the formation of national identities. The relation between social justice and intercultural education is another centre of interest. One author will address the historiographical challenges of intercultural or transnational research and another is concerned with the geographies of knowledge within this field. Closely related to these different research questions are the sources, which are further outlined in the attached abstracts.

This joint paper session of Network 7 and 17 explores the relation of education and interculturality within nation state formation, but also in a transnational perspective, thus creating a basis for identifying recurring elements in intercultural education, sparking new questions of international influences and inspirations in the national practices of intercultural education. Moreover, with its diversified historical perspectives on intercultural education the paper session contributes to ‘cultivate new land’ in the field of educational history.