This open access book is a result of an extensive, ambitious and wide-ranging pan-European project focusing on the development of children and young people’s cultural literacy and what it means to be European in the 21st century prioritising intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding. The Horizon 2020 funded, 3-year DIalogue and Argumentation for cultural Literacy Learning (DIALLS) project included ten partners from countries in and around Europe with the aim to centralise co-constructive dialogue as a main cultural literacy value and to promote tolerance, empathy and inclusion. This is achieved through teaching children in schools from a young age to engage together in discussions where they may have differing viewpoints or perspectives, to enable a growing awareness of their own cultural identities, and those of others. Central to the project is children’s engagement with wordless picture books and films, which are used as stimuli for discussions around core cultural themes such as social responsibility, living together and sustainable development. In order to enable intercultural dialogue in action, the project developed an online platform as a tool for engagement across classes, and which this book elaborates on. The book explores themes underpinning this unique interdisciplinary project, drawing together scholars from cultural studies, civics education and linguistics, psychologists, socio-cultural literacy researchers, teacher educators and digital learning experts. Each chapter of the book explores a theme that is common to the project, and celebrates its interdisciplinarity by exploring these themes through different lenses.

Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity offers a philosophical analysis of the issues surrounding cultural diversity and dialogical relationships among cultures as an alternative to “culture wars” and hegemonic globalization. It examines the ideas of dialogue and harmony as expressed in Daoism, Confucianism, Indian, and Ancient Greek philosophical traditions, as well as in contemporary European and Latin-American philosophies. Drawing on the works of Laozi, Confucius, Plato, Kant, and Gandhi, the book shows the importance of intercultural dialogue and the globalization of philosophy. It asserts that intercultural dialogue should have inter-philosophical global dialogue as its epistemological and ontological foundation. Intercultural philosophy elaborates on the conceptualization of philosophy as culturally embedded. Attention is paid to Bakhtin’s dialogism and its contemporary elaboration in the phenomenology of indirect speech, synergic anthropology, and the theory of transculture. The book offers a critical analysis of world problems. Their possible solutions require a more dialogically-oriented and humane transformation of society, aiming for a cosmopolitan order of law and peace.

Modern societies are inconceivable as isolated and mono-cultural entities. The interaction of various cultures is not only a fact of life for most Europeans, it also enriches our societies. However, we also witness tensions between cultures. Intercultural dialogue is therefore one of the political priorities of the Council of Europe, as shown most prominently by the adoption of the White Paper "Living Together as Equals in Dignity" in May 2008. Higher education, by its history and contemporary practice, is a natural partner in and promoter of intercultural dialogue and understanding. Higher education institutions and campuses are themselves multicultural societies, and as such are the focus of the present volume. A second volume will examine the role of higher education in furthering intercultural dialogue and understanding in broader society.

‘Intercultural dialogue’, as a concept and ideology in the European Union, stimulates a rational 21st century society where people can engage in (intercultural) communication on a global scale, and can do so openly and freely in conditions of security and mutual respect. Intercultural dialogue connotes dialogic communication that is peaceful, reconciliatory, and democratic. Yet the term and its accompanying rhetoric belie the intercultural communicative undercurrents and their manifestations that people encounter in their daily lives. The research-informed chapters in this book, which are situated in international contexts, provide more nuanced understandings, and many even challenge this non-critical ideology by suggesting that the concept of intercultural dialogue is inoperable and problematic under the present conditions of globalisation and migration, where there exists conflict, vulnerability, and instability. The different theoretical perspectives and analyses presented by the authors are a reminder that researchers in the field of intercultural communication require robust and appropriate theories, methods, and pedagogies in order to research these complex conditions and contexts, particularly where different languages and identities are present. The book is also a reminder of how context and power both (re)shape and contest the central tenets of intercultural dialogue—in particular, of who speaks for whom, when, how, and under what circumstances and conditions. This book was originally published as a special issue of Language and Intercultural Communication.