The article analyzes international approaches to the use of the principles of multicultural education in the modern educational process. Various approaches within the framework of multicultural education are highlighted, its purpose and basic principles are formulated. The concept of a teacher's multicultural competence and its main components are defined. Methods and techniques of pedagogical activity that can be used in solving the problems of forming a multicultural environment have been determined.
multicultural education, multicultural competence, acculturation approach, dialogue approach, cultural pluralism, the concept of multiperspective education, the formation of a multicultural environment
Multicultural education took shape as a separate area of pedagogical theory and practice in the last quarter of the 20th century. It arose and is developing against the background of sharply aggravated global social, economic, ethnic, spiritual and moral problems. Among them are economic and social inequality, conflicts on national and religious grounds, decline in moral values, etc.
An important factor in the development of multicultural education is the intensive development of integration processes in the modern world, the desire of many countries to integrate into the world and European socio-cultural and educational space, while preserving their national identity. With the opening of borders between states, people's mobility increases, their motivation to learn foreign languages, as well as to establish and maintain contacts within their own country and abroad.
At the initiative of UNESCO 2001-2010 were declared the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. Thanks to the activities of UNESCO, in the modern world community, attention has significantly increased to the preservation of national and cultural traditions of the peoples of different countries and their development in the context of multicultural education.
Multicultural education has great educational potential, developing in students such qualities as patriotism, tolerance, interest in the cultures of the peoples of their country and other countries of the world, the culture of interethnic communication. Such education can also activate the creative potential of an individual, create pedagogical conditions for the participation of schoolchildren in various forms of activity for the study, preservation and creative development of the traditions of various ethnic cultures.
Several approaches are distinguished in the study of the problem of multicultural education in world pedagogy. Within the framework of the acculturation approach, most foreign studies are of the opinion that multicultural education is designed to provide assistance and support to representatives of both contacting cultures, fostering such qualities as mutual openness, interest and tolerance [10].
For Russia, it is more relevant to preserve and enrich both the Russian culture, which is the dominant one in our country, and the national and cultural identity of other peoples inhabiting Russia, the so-called dialogue approach based on the ideas of openness, dialogue of cultures, and cultural pluralism. The essence of this approach is to consider multicultural education as a way to familiarize students with different cultures in order to form an international consciousness that allows them to integrate into the world and European cultural and educational space [3].
The goal of the participants in the dialogue is to achieve mutual understanding with all the possible difference in the positions taken in this dialogue. The peculiarity of the dialogue of multilingual cultures is that the multifunctionality of the words of one language is exaggerated by the variety of options for giving meaning to this word in another language. Each participant in the dialogue, in the process of searching for meaning and its verbalization, comes to his own truth. It may or may not coincide with the truth revealed by another participant. It is important to resolve the issue of the fundamental possibility of their unification [1].
The concept of multiperspective education can also be attributed to the dialogue approach. Its author, H. Gepfert, considers it necessary to revise educational programs to overcome a monocultural orientation, notes that the multiculturalism of an educational program cannot be judged only by the degree of representation of foreign cultures in it. More important is how intensively the idea of a dialogue of cultures is being implemented in the content of education. At the same time, H. Gepfert says that it is necessary to show representatives of other cultures in their life situation, together with their lifestyle, traditions, characteristics and life circumstances [12].
An interesting study that considers multicultural education as social education and training is the work of the German teacher R. Schmitt. His educational program for elementary school, which has the motto "Tolerance, Interaction, Solidarity", is based on the results of a psychological study of the processes of changing attitudes towards the world and worldview in children. R. Schmitt is one of the few authors touching upon the psychological prerequisites of multicultural education. He actively advocates the use of a problematic role-playing game as a method of multicultural education, during which a discrepancy between conscious and cognitively accepted knowledge and emotional spontaneous reactions is manifested. R. Schmitt formulates two important principles of multicultural education:
- the principle of avoiding normative differences. It is necessary to be very careful with the otherness and alienation of another culture and its representatives;
- the principle of "social closeness". It is advisable to include in the discussion actual, real problems and situations, so that it would be easier to relate them to their own experience [5].
Thus, most international studies agree that the goal of multicultural education is to form an individual who is ready for active creative activity in a modern multicultural and multinational environment, preserving his socio-cultural identity, striving to understand other cultures, respecting other cultural and ethnic communities. , who knows how to live in peace and harmony with representatives of different nationalities, races, beliefs.
Today, the state policy of most European countries is based on the concept of multicultural education [2].
The basic document defining the main international approaches in the field of multicultural education was the UNESCO document “Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policy”. It is important to note from its main provisions that “The international community considers it its duty to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of every nation. All this requires a cultural policy that would protect, develop and enrich the identity and cultural heritage of every nation, ensure full respect for cultural minorities and other cultures of the world ”[4].
The practice of multicultural education in the United States is based on the concept of J. Banks on the gradual integration of multicultural material into the content of education. Followers of this concept pay attention to the teacher's ability to explain to students the key concepts of a particular discipline, having previously selected the appropriate examples from a variety of material of ethnic content; the ability to assist the student in understanding the influence of stereotypes within a particular discipline on the process of building knowledge of this discipline; fostering tolerance for racial, ethnic and cultural differences; the ability to combine ethnopsychological and individual characteristics of students (temperament, character, abilities, motives and interests) [9].
The following provisions formulated in the concepts of American specialists in multicultural education represent a positive potential for domestic pedagogy: it is important to consider a student not only as a representative of a certain ethnic group, but also as a person with a set of cultural characteristics (gender and age, linguistic, ethnic, social, intellectual, physical); the use in the educational process of technologies to involve students in socially transformative activities contributes to the formation of their civic identity, respect for other cultures and their carriers; cooperation of scientists and teachers in teaching and methodological support of the educational process can significantly reduce the gap in the theory and practice of multicultural education [6].
Despite the differences in approaches and peculiarities of understanding the tasks of multicultural education, their solution for any country depends on the multicultural competence of a teacher who is ready to work in a multicultural educational institution. Taking into account the experience of the United States in this area, the main components of such competence can be distinguished, namely:
• knowledge of the culture of their people;
• the ability to help students define their cultural identity; knowledge of ethnopsychological characteristics and individual cultural styles of students;
• taking into account the differences between students in terms of comparison, and not the superiority of some over others;
• the ability to use the cultural characteristics of students as their advantages, not disadvantages; the ability to create and maintain a tolerant atmosphere in the children's team [7].
The leading methods that can be used in solving the problems of forming a system of knowledge and practical experience in a multicultural environment are verbal methods (explanation, heuristic conversation, discussion, lecture); methods of working with text (interpretation, reviewing); practical methods (modeling, design, exercise, training); reflexive methods (analysis, problematization, de-problematization) [11].
A significant role is played by dialogue as a method that presupposes an active position of its participants, primarily students, a method by which the teacher demonstrates model behavior that presupposes respect for the participants in the dialogue, attention to their opinion, and the desire to find a compromise [8].
The reflexive abilities of students are of particular importance, suggesting:
- the ability to analyze the socio-cultural situation and the activities carried out in it;
- the ability to fix personal difficulties in activities and identify problems of personal development;
- the ability to determine the ways out of difficulties and overcoming problems with the help of existing social experience and the development of new technologies of activity.
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