ABSTRACT
In contemporary Western education, dominant epistemologies are objectivism, pragmatism, and interpretivism and relevant learning theories are behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism, respectively. These have formed the basis of many of today’s pedagogical branches. In other cultures, there are Confucian virtuological pedagogy, Islamic totalistic pedagogy, Aboriginal holistic pedagogy, Hindu spiritual pedagogy, and Buddhist mindful pedagogy. These are strategically and ideologically used to promote cultural/religious values and are practised in special/religious (ethnic) schools because the governments of most countries have adopted Western education models (e.g., Bhutanese Gross National Happiness and Thai Green and Happy Society). What we call ethnic pedagogies (like cultures, pedagogies and knowledges have become countable general nouns in cross-cultural contexts) is partly adopted for multicultural education or inclusion of indigenous people in postcolonial societies (i.e., Aboriginal holistic education). In this context, contemporary pedagogies refer to widely known educational theories based on modern Western education systems. In this chapter, I will argue for pedagogical understandings of intercultural value networks through reviewing objectivist, constructivist, and critical pedagogical theories, as well as ethnic pedagogies, and I will describe what pedagogical interculturality looks like.
