INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION AND THE GRUNDTVIGIAN CONCEPT OF SCHOOL FOR LIFE

Abstract

Contemporary folk high schools are places where local communities can maintain a dialogue - both within itself a dialogue well as with others. Folk high schools are thus not only important centers of civic education but also institutions in which intercultural education has been taiking place for decades. The understating of the genesis of the dialogue of cultures in folk high schools seems to be difficult to comprehend without resorting to the roots of the educational ideas of Nicolas F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) and his concept of schools for life in particular. The author analyses the views of this Danish philosopher and educator related to the concepts expressed in the title of this paper. The author admits to draw from Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) the ideas related to the concept of cultural diversity and hence a multiplicity of paths leading to humanity, on the basis of which Grundtvig puts forward a hypothesis on the necessity of dialogue between representatives of different cultures. At the same the author points out that Grundtvig does not recognize the ‘inevitability of culture dash’ to which, according to many researchers, drawing from Herder’s theories should lead. The author indicates that Grundtvigs ideas can be analyzed into several planes on which intercultural dialogue can be led: internal Danish, Scandinavian an international and simultaneously calls upon and com- ments the Grundtvig’s idea offolkelighed which in order to implemented, reąuires adult educational institutions of the new type - schools for life, a theoretical prototype of high folk schools. The paper is concluded by the considerations concerning the history of the intercultural character of adult education institutions which are similar to high folk schools and an observation that for over one hundred years high folk schools have been implementing, at the practical level, the major theoretical concepts of intercultural education, and supporting their practice with sound theoretical justification. Hence there activity definitely anticipated the process of the establishment of intercultural pedagogy as an autonomous area of educational studies. So perhaps the major thesis presented by the author of the paper is worth remembering