Un-learning and criticality in intercultural education

Zotzmann, Karin (2018) Un-learning and criticality in intercultural education. In, Dervin, Fred and Byrd Clark, Junie (eds.) Critical Thinking in Multilingual and Intercultural Education. Info Age Publishing. (In Press)

Abstract

This chapter engages with the question what critical thinking in intercultural education is, as well as what it is not, i.e. what constitutes uncritical thinking. I depart from the assumption that intercultural learning takes place at the boundaries between what we know and what we do not know: the experiences not yet lived, the perspectives not yet understood, as well as the discourses and other semiotic resources not yet encountered or appropriated. Intercultural learning as an engagement with difference is hence as much about learning as it is about un-learning and while criticality is important for the former, it is fundamental for the latter. In order to explore the notion of criticality in the context of un-learning, I draw upon most recent discussions (Sayer 2010 and 2011, Grenfell et al. 2011) about Bourdieu’s (1984) notion of ‘habitus’ and ‘field’. ‘Habitus’ captures the embodied nature and largely out-of-awareness dispositions that people acquire through years of socialization in specific ‘fields’, i.e. structured spaces with specific roles and relations

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