Building an intercultural pedagogy for higher education in conditions of conflict and protracted crises: Languages, identity, culture

Conditions of conflict, civil war, siege and occupation, and other forms of protracted crises have resulted in the forced migration of refugees and internally displaced people, especially youths, who are then marginalised or excluded from formal education. These conditions created educational challenges in low and middle income countries (LMICs). How can researchers, educators, teachers, and students in (formal) higher education (HE) develop the capabilities and resources to support the learning of youths (and their families) who are marginalised and excluded from formal education, or who lack certain aspects of education for employability? What resources do they and local community support groups need to facilitate intercultural communication and education across these differences and divides? How can the arts and humanities support intercultural dialogue and understanding through non-formal education? How can intercultural pedagogies that promote the awareness and understanding of individuals' multiple languages, multiple identities, their culture and heritage, and self-representations be developed in and for these contexts? How can formal and non-formal education prepare young people to become global citizens: to take responsibility and participate in civil society, and act in the face of all forms of injustice?

This research network, responding to the AHRC GCRF highlight notice for education in contexts of conflict and protracted crises; aims to develop locally-generated, context-specific intercultural pedagogies and understandings of global citizenship in the LMICs of Columbia, Gaza, and Turkey. The network of multilingual, multi-/interdisciplinary researchers (in applied linguistics, education, intercultural communication, languages, and theology) will initiate exploration and dialogue to develop conceptualisations and methodologies of intercultural education-intercultural pedagogies-and global citizenship in these contexts. The network is led by researchers in the UK, and supported by academic advisors in the UK and Turkey and a researcher in Brazil, all of whom are experts in languages, intercultural communication and education, and the creative arts. The network-through collaboration and intercultural dialogue-will build capabilities among researchers, teachers, students, youths marginalised or excluded from formal education and work (and their families), and community support groups. Together, they will co-construct activities that draw on arts and humanities (languages, intercultural communication, and the creative arts) and deliver them via workshops in four case-study sites (Bogota, Gaza, Istanbul and Durham). The research will also facilitate improved understanding of the role of researchers' multilingual resources, translation, and intercultural communication in multilingual, intercultural research contexts.

The emerging new conceptualisations of intercultural education, intercultural dialogue, and global citizenship, and associated pedagogies will be useful to researchers and educators who are developing formal and non-formal education in LMICs where similar conditions prevail. The activities, available on the project website, will provide a practical resource. The intercultural pedagogies will be useful in teacher education and training in preparing teachers and community workers (e.g., in NGOs and charities). Pedagogies grounded in multiple languages and the creative arts-that recognised individuals' multiple languages, identities, cultures and cultural heritage-will be useful to teachers and community support groups to build intercultural dialogue and understanding across diverse groups of people, and to professional teachers' associations. Finally, the research will be important in shaping educational policy (in both LMICs and the North) that responds to the aims of the UNESCO 2030 education strategy (underpinned by SDG4 and SDG4.7).

Responding to the AHRC GCRF's call to explore the contribution that arts and humanities research can make to education and learning in low and middle income countries (LMICs) in the above contexts, the research developed through the research network will benefit researchers in applied linguistics, education, languages, intercultural education and communication, and theology. The research will initiate the development of intercultural education pedagogies in formal and non-formal learning contexts, focusing on languages, culture and cultural heritage, multiple identities, and representations-concepts central in arts and humanities research concerning an individual's identity, belonging, and wellbeing. A related purpose is to build UK and LMIC arts and humanities cross/inter-disciplinary and cross-border capability through links among academics, teachers, and students in higher education, and populations in the community (e.g., refugees and asylum seekers, minority and indigenous groups, migrants, and people who are displaced or excluded, and who have limited or no access to education) and the community groups, NGOs, charities, and other individuals who support them.

The research network outputs will impact both academic and non-academic communities, locally, nationally, and internationally. The principal beneficiaries of the network activities are the excluded youths and their families who benefit from the non-formal learning and intercultural integration via the workshops. Other beneficiaries include: i) education policy makers who seek to provide guidance on curriculum development and capacity building in intercultural education and global citizenship education in implementing the UNESCO 2030 education strategy; ii) curriculum developers in secondary and higher education who are seeking new pedagogies and programmes that foreground languages, intercultural education and global citizenship to promote students as participating and responsible citizens alert to violent forms of extremism and threats to ethnic and cultural identities and heritages; iii) teachers' associations and professional groups who provide training, upskilling, and knowledge exchange in formal and non-formal educational contexts; iv) academics and researchers in HE who seek new and critical understandings and conceptualisations of intercultural communication, intercultural education, and global citizenship that are developed in the Global South, and underpinned by languages and the creative arts in shaping culture, identity, and representation; v) students, who via the online peer-student exchanges facilitated by the PI and Co-Is in the network, are able to construct new understandings of youth participation and responsibility (the forms of global citizenship outlined in SDG4.7) as well as new forms of peer learning with other young people marginalised or excluded from education; and vi) third sector groups (NGOs, charities, and other support groups) who will be able to apply the intercultural pedagogies to support intercultural communication and integration between host community members and refugees and migrants excluded from education, or who experience discrimination, unemployment, and loss of linguistic and cultural heritage and identity.

The transnational, multi-/interdisciplinary researcher network will also improve academic understandings of researcher methods and processes of translation, language and intercultural communication, especially when researching among professional groups, community groups, change agents and others in culturally and linguistically diverse local communities. These explorations of multilingual researcher processes will support the development of methods for "researching multilingually" (an area of research of the PI through two earlier AHRC-funded projects) among a transnational, multilingual, interdisciplinary group of researchers, many of whom are from LMICs.