While the determination of how to “live together” has always represented a major challenge to the human condition, that challenge becomes even more acute in contemporary societies as they now have to deal with various conceptions of the Other (for example, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, social class or gender). School programs and policy documents reveal two dominant trends related to this challenge. First, the usage of the term “living together” (“vivre ensemble” in French) is becoming increasingly common. Second, the debates, reflections and proposals on the term tend to limit its meaning to religious and cultural diversity of immigrants within the United Nations. Consider, for example, The Council of Europe’s White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008). The paper argues that dialogue is the key to “living together as equals in dignity.” Here intercultural dialogue is particularly emphasized as playing a major role in preventing “ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural divides.” It enables us to “move forward together, to deal with our different identities constructively and democratically on the basis of shared universal values” (p. 3). The mandate of the Council was to form a working group that would formulate “a series of proposals for “living together” in open European societies.” The task was initiated as a response to the “resurgence of intolerance and discrimination in Europe” (Fisher, et al., Report of the Group of Eminent Persons of the Council of Europe, April 2011, p. 5; Jagland, 2010). A similar trend is also apparent in Quebec. The report of the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences (2008) addresses the challenges and difficulties of living together within diversity. The report places considerable emphasis on the need for “norms of collective life” (p. 124), on the necessity of an education for “living together” that favours understanding and “mutual respect,” and on the need to establish a mode of coexistence “based on the general ideal of intercultural harmonization” (p. 160). Discourses within education are increasingly reflecting these concerns. Consider, for example, the program “Learning to Live Together, an Intercultural and Interfaith Programme for Ethics Education, developed in collaboration with UNESCO and UNICEF by the Arigatou Foundation (2008; http://www.ethicseducationforchildren.org/1t1/index.html). Consider also the many publications of the Council of Europe on intercultural education, teaching for socio-cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, all of which are influencing the orientations and educational policies of school programs. Another recent and notable example is Quebec’s new Ethics and Religious Culture program. This program became compulsory for all Quebec students as of September 2008. It seeks to promote a capacity for living together as well as a capacity for building a common public culture (Government du Québec, 2008). Already, in 1996, UNESCO presented the Delors Report which called for an education which fosters the capacity to be and to live with others. The report called for programs where learning is not reduced to the assimilation of technical skills and where learners are engaged as subjects, as persons and as members of society. Here teaching how to live together is considered to be one of the major educational challenges of our time. The report identifies two complimentary avenues to achieve this end: the progressive discovery of the Other and engagement in common projects. Self-knowledge, empathy, critical thinking, dialogue, argumentation and cooperation are cited as ways of learning to live together. Since the publication of this report, however, there seems to have been a shift away from the ethical aspirations of its authors. As some of the more recent reports indicate, learning to live together is often reduced to “learning to live with them, the immigrants.” Moreover, the usage of the term risks becoming a catch-all phrase devoid of substance and meaning. Hence a call for thinking through and theorizing what it means to live together, from an ethical perspective, is beginning to emerge. Duhamel (2010), for example, is especially weary of attempts to reduce the term to whatever is most popular and politically convenient. For Duhamel, the term “vivre ensemble” is a call against fragmentation, conflict and exclusion. To raise questions about what it means to live together is to raise questions about integration, about one’s relationship to otherness, about the interdependence of individuals, citizens and social groups, and about our capacity to respond peacefully within that interdependence. The objective of this special issue is to present the results of both conceptual and empirical research that serve to illuminate the ethical dimensions, frameworks, questions and/or considerations of an education for co-existence, that is, an education that addresses the challenge of “living together” in our diverse societies. The papers in this issue will draw from empirical studies, diverse theoretical and philosophical frameworks, and from educational policy and practice. |
ISSN: 1916-0666