Susana Gonçalves

Intangible Culture, Cooperation and Intercultural Dialogue among University Students.

This paper focuses on intercultural competence and dialogue across cultural borders between university students from different Portuguese‐speaking countries. Various principles and strategies for intercultural education are summarised, and the project cultures@esec, based on such principles and strategies, is described. The project was focused on cultural heritage. The identities of African students and the intangible culture were also explored. Part of the project involved frequent contacts between domestic and international students, cooperation under equal‐status conditions, joint decision‐making and active learning. Results show that sharing knowledge and ideas, and working under pleasant learning conditions, can help reduce cultural barriers and prejudice and contributes to intercultural sensitivity and competence. Este artigo centra‐se na competência intercultural dos estudantes universitários de países lusófonas e no diálogo entre culturas. São identificados, de forma sumária, alguns princípios e estratégias de educação intercultural e apresentado o projecto cultures@esec, que se baseia em tais princípios. O projecto esteve orientado para a valorização da herança cultual dos estudantes africanos e respectivas identidades e explorou a cultura intangível dos seus países. O trabalho desenvolvido implicou frequentes contactos entre os estudantes nacionais e estrangeiros, decisões conjuntas e cooperação em igualdade de estatuto. Os resultados mostram que partilhar conhecimentos e ideias e trabalhar em condições de aprendizagem agradáveis ajuda a quebrar barreiras culturais e a combater o preconceito e estimula a sensibilidade e a competência intercultural dos estudantes.

Intercultural Education from a Portuguese Perspective

When the Carnation Revolution took place in 1974, Portugal was an economically underdeveloped country, with old-fashioned infrastructures and social organisations, an outdated economy and frame of mind, and low national self-esteem. There was a gap between the authoritarianism of former Prime Minister Salazar’s regime and the real problems of the people, which led to an ambiguous mentality in terms of many of the issues characterising the Portuguese society of the time. Colonialism is part of that group of ambiguities.