Families and Intercultural Challenges

Abstract

Intercultural upbringing and educational initiatives are a contemporary ped agogical trend and a precondition in school contexts that reflect diverse char acteristics. Encouraging intercultural education as a concept and philosophy is closely related to the value system nurtured and practiced within the fam ily, serving as a foundation for forming, shaping, or transforming attitudes and values towards diversity and otherness. Following this premise, the active participation of families is crucial and constructive recommendation for sup porting and sustaining intercultural upbringing and educational approaches. To this end, a study was conducted focusing on elucidating the following as pects of the presented issues: • examining the role of family communities of different types and struc tures in embracing intercultural values and orientation; • identifying the factors influencing families’ decisions to take part in inter cultural initiatives; • determining the similarities in different family structures involved in in tercultural upbringing and educational approaches. The qualitative methodological framework of the research was designed based on participant observation, semi-structured interviews with multiple focus groups, and analysis of pedagogical documentation. The ethnic, gen der, social, educational, age, cultural, linguistic, and geographic diversity of the parents’ sample provided both a deep insight into obstacles they face and their motivations to take part in intercultural activities, as a prerequisite for further involving their children of early school age. Possible obstacles that parents faced included concerns about overburdening their children with additional school activities; unfamiliarity with the languages of other ethnic communities in the country; unfavourable social and political conditions in various local contexts; and fear of possible misunderstandings or conflicts. A crucial finding of this research were the universal encouraging factors among the parent’s sample (regardless of diversity across various grounds) for a support of intercultural educational activities. Human values such as child well-being, quality education, and the opportunity for children to meet and interact with peers from different ethnic backgrounds were main reasons for the parents’ positive stance, further supported by strong trust in class teachers and their intercultural competencies.