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De l’homogénéité à l’hétérogénéité culturelle : défis et enjeux pour la formation interculturelle

Fabienne Tanon and Nicole Chiasson

Quelle « grammaire » des relations interculturelles dans des milieux culturellement homogènes ?

Vittoria Cesari Lusso
This article begins by examining the concept of "cultural homogeneity" and opens up the possibility of forming hypotheses about the meanings given to the term in our societies and the processes at play in contrasting homogeneity and heterogeneity. The article then suggests some reference points for a "grammar" of intercultural relations in a context marked by a complex dialectic between these two poles for cultural understanding. The last part of the article is a reflection on pedagogical action. The thesis advanced is that the task of the school does not appear to be reducible to preparing children for "intercultural" relations, but rather for "relations period". This means providing future generations with the symbolic means to manage relations with otherness in its various forms: cultural, sexual, cognitive, affective, and so on.

Hétérogénéité culturelle, stratégies identitaires, et interculturation paradoxale

Edmond Marc Lipiansky
This study is based on a process of "education-research" conducted with intercultural encounter groups. The study makes use of the concept of "identity strategy» to analyse a specific configuration, "paradoxical interculturation", on the basis of several testimonials. Paradoxical interculturation consists of a situation in which the individual is faced with two contradictory cultural models and cannot fully identify with either one. This configuration makes it impossible to build a stable cohesiveness for one's identity and stymies the search for recognition and affirmation. The study allows for an understanding of certain identity issues related to the consequences of colonization and to relations of dominance between cultures.

La formation interculturelle concerne-t-elle les écoles des milieux culturellement peu diversifiés ?

Fernand Ouellet
Relying on a conception of intercultural education that treats it as an essential component of civics education, this article seeks to define the main competencies that must be mastered by those who would have this broad vision of education integrated into all schools, even schools in settings of little cultural diversity. After putting forward the main components of a program of study designed within such a framework, the article considers whether Quebec's Policy Statement on Educational Integration and Intercultural Education, published in 1997, and the reform to the education system begun in September 2000 provide avenues for ensuring the significance of intercultural education is recognized even in schools featuring little cultural diversity.

La gestion de la diversité culturelle dans le système éducatif fribourgeois

Abdeljalil Akkari
This article presents an analysis of the management of cultural diversity in an education system in a region only lately faced with international migration, Fribourg, Switzerland. Research was first conducted at the macro level, with an examination of the academic trajectories traced by minority-group students. Then student teachers were questioned about their teaching philosophies and their ways of explaining and resolving a case of educational maladjustment linked to cultural diversity. It was found that migrant students are viewed as experiencing a sociocultural deficit and that in the Fribourg education system they constitute a problem to be solved.

Le nouveau rôle de l’enseignant en milieu culturellement homogène : le cas de la Grèce

Georges Androulakis
Traditionally seen as a nation with a single culture, Greece is currently turning itself into a land that welcomes immigrants and discovering multiculturalism. Greek schools are confronting an unprecedented situation. What of the awareness, the representations, and the needs of Greek teachers called upon to play the role of cultural mediators? This article reviews the state of intercultural education in Greece, sketches out prospects for teacher education, and presents some data, findings, and conclusions from an interview study conducted among teachers in culturally mixed schools by a team directed by the author.

L’histoire des familles immigrantes : un enjeu pour l’intervention sociale dans les régions du Québec

Michèle Vatz Laaroussi
This article is concerned with the question of immigrant families who have settled in regions of Quebec that are considered homogeneous, that is, that have traditionally witnessed little immigrant presence. A study conducted in two Quebec regions, Estrie, and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, allows for examination of several areas of misunderstanding between immigrants and workers in the field of social services: the family, history, and change. Following this analyis, the article presents an approach to situated intercultural intervention that takes these dimensions into account. This approach makes it possible to identify the educational focuses that should be developed to enable all students to open up to intercultural realities.

Les compétences à cibler lors d’une formation sur la gestion des demandes d’accommodement

Benoit Côté and Claude Charbonneau
This article puts forward a schematic model of the variables and psychological processes that are in play when managers of private firms and public institutions receive requests to accommodate individuals' specific ethnic or religious requirements. This original model is inspired by a theory conceived to guide an intermittent helping relation. Within the process of accommodation, it identifies three sub-processes: self-meaning, self-determination, and self-management. It also pinpoints three sets of relevant variables linked to the perception of imbalance, to motivation, and to attitudes and aptitudes related to openness or closure towards difference. The goal envisaged is to provide a guide to educators who wish to train managers in the process of handling a request for accommodation. For each sub-process and each set of variables, the model identifies useful skills and suggests tools and activities for developing them.