Johanna Lasonen

Intercultural Education: Promoting Sustainability in Education and Training

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a dynamic concept that encompasses a new vision of education seeking to empower people of all ages to assume responsibility for creating and enjoying a sustainable future. Today the notion of sustainable development includes ecological, economic, social and cultural sustainability. Cultural diversity and intercultural education contribute to the social and cultural aspects of sustainability. Responding to the challenge of ESD entails that the education policy is based on the participation of the whole population: all individuals should be aware of their own responsibility for creating a sustainable future in terms of ecology, economy, social relations and culture. The objectives for each education and training system stem from each country’s culture, economic and environmental context. Nevertheless, the global dimension of sustainable development must be taken into consideration in each country. Education, as a mean for sustainable development, covers formal and non-formal education, local civil society, the media and the workplace. Each country’s capacity to move towards sustainable human development depends on the existence of skilled human resources in the scientific, technical and professional fields that are needed for addressing complex environmental, resource and development issues. In an international global marketplace, large numbers of both temporary and permanent migrants can result in a highly diverse workforce. This diversity gives rise to intercultural competence and thus poses the question to educators and TVET, in particular: is intercultural education a separate subject of curriculum or should it be seen as an essential component of overall education? Internationalization, regionalization and localization, as trends within globalization, have provided new kinds of requirements and opportunities for intercultural dialogue and learning. However, in some countries the focus has been on promoting the mobility of the workforce and unifying qualifications across the region, rather

What is CTE?: Practitioners Struggle to Define Their Field in the United States

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to capture the perspectives of 13 masters’ students, who are also practitioners in Career and Technical Education (CTE), regarding how they conceive of the field. A few recurring themes emerged: (a) transitional identity as the field tries to distance itself from the stigma of vocational education; (b) purpose of CTE reflecting the tension between narrow and broad preparation for work; and (c) perspectives on new directions in the field viewing CTE as an integral component of education for all students aligned with calls for more rigorous integration of academic and CTE. Curricular recommendations for CTE graduate programs are articulated, including implications to develop coherent and shared consensus regarding the purpose and mission of the field to provide programmatic direction and vision.

Teachers’ Intercultural Competence as Part of Global Competence

Internationalisation is a common aim of official educational policy in many countries. People with different beliefs, values, and lifestyles cannot avoid interacting with each other in multicultural societies and in a globalized world. While persons work with different people in multicultural environments, they have to challenge their behaviour and practices and learn new ways of thinking and interacting.

European Action Programmes for Lifelong Learning

Vocational education and training has been a part of the process of creating a European community since the 1950s. The European training programmes Erasmus and Comett were launched in the 1980s. After the Maastricht Treaty, agreed in 1992, such training programmes were expanded further at the same time as emphasizing their importance to the internationalization of education. With a view to promoting and intensifying educational co-operation, in 1995 the European Commission created two new educational programmes called Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci. Both are umbrella schemes that brought together previously separate action programmes in the field of education. Leonardo da Vinci has been a European Union (EU) action programme in the field of vocational education and training that replaced earlier schemes such as Comett, Eurotechnet, Petra, Force and a part of Lingua. Leonardo I ran from 1995 to 1999, while Leonardo II covered the years 2000 to 2006. Socrates has been the EU umbrella programme for co-operation in school and higher education. Socrates I (1995–1999) was followed by Socrates II (2000– 2006). Since 2007, the European education and training programmes were further merged under the title Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), being a successor to the Socrates, Leornardo da Vinci and e-Learning programmes. The LLP covers the period 2007 to 2013 with a budget of about 7 billion Euros. The overarching LLP initiative consists of learning opportunities from childhood to old age. The purpose of these programmes has been to promote the international mobility of students, teachers and educational administrators, develop educational practices, and make European education systems more transparent through mutual learning. The target group of these programmes has been individuals in schools, colleges, universities and companies. The motives behind internationalization include sustainable economic growth, competitiveness, a need for an educated workforce and social cohesion. This chapter describes the development of European education and training programmes, especially in TVET, and assesses their effectiveness.