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This paper reports on a small-scale project involving an online school exchange between two classes of 12-/13-year olds located in the North of England and the Ruhr area of Germany. The overarching aim of the project was to develop intercultural understanding in foreign language learning through communication in an online environment. Analysing data from website posts, lesson observations, student questionnaires and interviews, the paper investigates the extent to which the project realised this goal, and examines emerging practical and pedagogical issues. Comparing the processes and outcomes of this project in secondary education to similar projects in Higher Education (HE), the research found that the young people learnt more than older students about cultural similarities than differences. They were thus less likely to be party to cultural misunderstandings, developing friendly relationships and openness towards a people of a different culture. However, their failure to notice differences may have been due to a lack of in-depth discussion and absence of more demanding student tasks. The paper concludes that in order to develop more sophisticated intercultural learning, expertise derived from telecollaboration in HE needs to be adapted to the lower secondary school context, drawing particularly on auto-ethnography and ethnographic interviewing.

The article focuses on some findings of a comparative study carried out by a network of scholars and researchers who are active in the field of intercultural education in the European context in the main "old immigration countries" (United Kingdom, France and Germany), "new immigration countries" (Italy, Spain and Greece) and some northern European countries (Netherlands and Sweden). The scholars involved in the study highlight that a structural "segregation" of students with different cultural and social backgrounds can be largely observed in European schools. In fact, the long tradition of cultural and language homogeneity in several European education systems has in many cases led to the isolation of immigrant students in schools when they are placed in the contexts of lower social and economic opportunities. Another issue highlighted by the study relates to social equity as a major challenge for intercultural education. Inequalities between immigrant students and their native peers must be addressed by an intercultural approach that is able not only to promote cultural understanding but can also provide effective opportunities for immigrant students, challenging the problems of lack of achievement among immigrant students. A gap between statements of intercultural principles and assimilationist practices has also emerged from the study. Principles on intercultural perspectives in Europe often appear to be very innovative and exist on a progressive and democratic level. However, in the European context, real practices are often implemented under "assimiliationist" and "compensatory" viewpoints. Finally, the study raises fundamental questions about the critical revision of the project of European society. Indeed, one of the major current challenges in European education systems will be overcoming a persistent Eurocentric setting, building effective responses for all the students and providing all the pupils with skills that are indispensable for full active citizenship in an interdependent and pluralistic Europe.

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a teaching project that was constructed around an actual request by a Muslim community in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to establish an Islamic cultural centre. The request provoked a sometimes heated discussion among politicians and citizens that was published in daily newspapers. A large number of the arguments that appeared in the newspapers failed to meet fair argumentation standards and strategies. The teaching project described here therefore aimed to sensitize future teachers to issues of argumentation integrity in dialogues, especially between persons with different religious and ideological convictions. The project was subdivided into three main phases, which treated the topic from different perspectives and with different methods: a "simulation game" dealing with the request by the Muslim community, a "theory-based" phase in which participants became acquainted with a construct of argumentation integrity and from this deduced standards and strategies relating to unfair argumentation, and an "application" phase in which the participants had to examine published arguments by politicians relating to the request by the Muslim community in order to identify rule violations in argumentations. The empirical results suggest that the project promoted insight into unfair argumentation. Such insight can improve interreligious and intercultural communication processes at school.

Until recently, the few attempts to develop intercultural competence in German higher education institutions were limited to the initiative of individuals and were mostly targeted at selected groups, e.g. students participating in international master's programmes. Only recently have German universities started to acknowledge the fact that internationalization produces more challenges than organizing student or staff mobility, developing international degree programmes or creating marketing strategies for increasing the number of international students. In the course of this change, German higher education institutions have set up various projects that share a view of cultural diversity as a resource to be explored by the university as a whole. Local initiatives are supported at the national level by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), with its programmes to internationalize German higher education institutions. The "Qualification for Intercultural Communication" project (qualiko) at Hildesheim University is one of 46 projects funded by the DAAD over a period of two years from 2009 to 2011. With about 5,000 students enrolled, Hildesheim University is by German standards a rather small university, but at the same time it has a relatively high rate of international mobility, in particular owing to its largest faculty, Language and Information Studies. In contrast to most DAAD projects, which are run by international offices, qualiko is based within the Institute of Intercultural Communication and can build upon a certain expertise in the design of intercultural training programmes. This article presents the project outline and describes the intercultural training programme at Hildesheim University.

Twenty narrative interviews were conducted with German host parents between 2006 and 2007 about their experiences with a one-year stay of a guest student in their family. The study took place within the context of a student research project as part of the research-oriented MA course "Intercultural Communication-Intercultural Competence" at Chemnitz University of Technology. The interviews were analyzed by means of Grounded Theory, which revealed that the guest families' experiences are determined not only by the personality/character and sociocultural background of the guest student, but to a higher degree by the specific motives, wishes and expectations of the host parents. Both socially shared and individual norms, attitudes and values proved to guide the host parents' interaction with their guest, to some extent explicitly, but mainly in an unconscious and implicit way. The action chains as explicated by the interviewees can be understood as individual coping strategies for cultural differences, which in themselves can turn out to be problematic (i.e. when they mainly serve the regulation of self-esteem, or when experienced difference is wrongly attributed to culture instead of, for example, developmental processes of adolescence). Hence, in comparative analysis, both challenges and potentials of intercultural learning (as defined in the CfP) from hosting a guest student could be identified, and recommendations for better practice could be derived. In particular, the latter should be discussed in a practitioner-scientist dialogue. (Contains 4 notes and 3 figures.)

The European University Viadrina located on the German-Polish border, with a high number of international students, was founded to promote the "growing-together" of Europe. Despite those aims, it is becoming more evident that international institutions must develop special strategies to sensitize their members on an intercultural level and to encourage intercultural communication. The case of Viadrina University serves as example of how a course programme can be created in order to promote intercultural competence. One of the programme's main aims is to give students the possibility of experiencing, discovering and discussing the diversity of values and worldviews in special workshops. Today, the training programme, which at first had not been considered necessary by many university employees, has turned into a success story which can be transferred to other international academic institutions. (Contains 4 notes and 1 table.)

This paper describes a successful project that promotes the intercultural educational value of international exchange for students and youth groups. "Colored glasses" is a project of the German Youth for Understanding Committee aiming to enhance intercultural education by providing intercultural learning opportunities to students in primary and secondary education. It addresses the questions of (1) how to promote intercultural understanding within a diverse society without necessarily having the experience of going "abroad"; (2) how to approach students from different educational backgrounds and age-groups; (3) how to take into consideration a society that becomes more and more diverse; and (4) what are the adequate teaching/learning methods. (Contains 1 note.)

The European University Viadrina located on the German-Polish border, with a high number of international students, was founded to promote the 'growing-together' of Europe. Despite those aims, it is becoming more evident that international institutions must develop special strategies to sensitize their members on an intercultural level and to encourage intercultural communication. The case of Viadrina University serves as example of how a course programme can be created in order to promote intercultural competence. One of the programme's main aims is to give students the possibility of experiencing, discovering and discussing the diversity of values and worldviews in special workshops. Today, the training programme, which at first had not been considered necessary by many university employees, has turned into a success story which can be transferred to other international academic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]