ABSTRACT
In multicultural education, a common requirement for teachers is the “use of a range of resources appropriate to students’ learning needs that should reflect students’ identities” (Department of Education and Training, 2011, p. 29) and flexibility in and access to resources (McLoughlin & Oliver, 2000). As a practical approach to intercultural interaction, in this chapter, I will demonstrate how the three dimensions of educational metaphysics (ontology, epistemology, and axiology) can be used to be inclusive of diverse cultural/religious/philosophical concepts, narratives, and doctrines. In particular, an ultimate purpose of this demonstration is to articulate diverse perspectives on interculturality in value networks. Some may raise the question of whether these cultures/religions/ philosophies can be precisely defined with any of the three metaphysical dimensions. Some may also argue whether sub-cultural variants of each can be encompassed by the three. As discussed in philosophical hermeneutics of Chapter 6, we always engage in prejudiced cultural horizons, and ontological hermeneutics is used to encourage us to face our own prejudiced fore-structure. This means that our understanding may produce an example of misinterpretation and misrepresentation of a chosen cultural concept, but it should be temporary because our prejudices are the hermeneutic foundations. The nature of such a metaphysical interpretation is not to set our minds on a particular doctrine, but to understand our own horizons (prejudices) and expand them further towards intercultural interaction. Also, I want to remind readers of the issue that pluralists’ approach to cultural diversity could turn into culturalism unless one is able to understand the concept of pluralism from other cultural perspectives.
