Policy Brief: Developing Education Policies in Europe to Enhance Cultural Literacy

Abstract

Europe needs education policies that seek to advance intercultural dialogue in a way which reflects the super-diversity of today’s Europe, support respect for diversity and difference, and enable the growth of young people’s identities. The DIALLS project seeks to respond to these needs by developing the concept and idea of cultural literacy and creating a Cultural Literacy Learning Programme for young people. For DIALLS, cultural literacy means a social practice that is inherently dialogic and based on learning and gaining knowledge through empathetic, tolerant and inclusive interaction with others. DIALLS’ qualitative content and concept analysis of European and national education policy documentation has revealed that cultural interactions are often narrowly framed ignoring dialogue as a process of learning and empathy as its core disposition. Based on our analysis, we recommend that education policymakers be more precise and specific with culture- related concepts and better reflect increasing pluralism in Europe. We recommend that cultural literacy is used as a conceptual and practical means in education policy documentation to deal with differences and cultural interactions.