Death by culture?

» May culture be laid to rest forever.

Gavan

In 2005, a discussion document on intercultural learning was published in follow-up to the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sports Long Term Training Course “Intercultural Learning” — LTTC ICL (the paper is available here).

In this document, Dr Gavan Titley argues that, while intercultural learning has become a key work area in European youth training during the last fifteen years, approaches that have been consolidated and widely reproduced during this period are no longer adequate to the realities in which young people live and practice youth work.

At the occasion of the DYS seminar entitled «Intercultural learning – which ways forward?», Gavan was invited to revisit the paper and its main conclusions and bring it in relation to the current educational practice of intercultural learning. Again, we recorded his intervention as a podcast for the world out there.

the distorting lense
…of culture…

Download the podcast below to find out why using culture as a concept is dangerous and often inherently racist, why Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay has an intercultural policy and what this means for intercultural learning in non-formal education (and probably elsewhere, too!).

standard version | mp3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link

Enjoy listening, and stay tuned!


You do need a mic

In case you need some help with what to do:

A podcast is nothing else than a digital recording of a radio broadcast or a similar programme which is then made available on the internet. While the name is coming from both broadcasting and iPod, a podcast is not restricted to an iPod or any other media player, in fact. You can listen to it easily, using one of many different ways.

If you wanna know more about podcasting, head over to Wikipedia.

The only thing that you need is a computer which can play mp3-files. Millions of programmes do that for you – Windows Media Player (or Jetaudio if you are on the outlook for a better and free alternative) on PC computers or Quicktime on MAC machines or iTunes on both.

Normally your computer knows very well what to do anyway, so just go ahead and download the mp3 file — your machine will take it from there, most likely. If not, ask a geeky character in your vicinity.

Just be aware that audio podcasts are usually not the smallest files (also true for ours: 21 Megabytes), so download might take a moment or two. The good news: It happens in the background, so you can continue to work away!

For you iTunes users out there, we have also included the iTunes link. For you nerdy friends of ours, we also have a more modern version of the soundfile available. And for all friends of RSS and feed readers, we also have a link especially for our podcasts.

The wonderful mic-pic is courtesy of s.e.v.e.n

Comments

2 responses to “Death by culture?”

  1. Andreas Karsten Avatar

    In wonderfully absurd ways related to the question of Gavan – «Why does Camp X-Ray have an intercultural policy?» – is this piece of News from Yahoo, informing us that according to a study concucted by Kwintessential, the military needs intercultural skills.

    Thought so.

    Read the news story here:

    «Military needs intercultural skills»