ABSTRACT
From the myriad of theoretical perspectives that support conflict analysis and resolution work and/or activities geared towards coexistence and reconciliation, the cross-cultural encounters approach has been sustained and developed primarily on the basis of somewhat constrained theoretical approaches. These approaches are based on psychological and psychodynamic perspectives related to individual and personality development or, when stressing individual change through intergroup relations, sociological and sociopsychological perspectives. The foundational paradigms that support these underlying perspectives lack critical approaches as well as any reference to educational theorizing. Research in this field has dealt with rather short-term interventions devised for dispute resolution, conflict management, and intergroup encounters. The research methodology frequently utilizes quantitative, positivist perspectives that deal with the manipulation of variables and graphical representations of patterns of relationships but do not necessarily offer insights into the complexities of human activity in general and intergroup encounters in particular. Exceptions are to be found (Desivilya 2004; Hammack 2006; Helman 2002) but these critiques stand and have been recently raised again even from within the psychological literature (Dixon et al. 2005).
