ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores the literature often separated by discipline or context—interculturalism and civic integration in Euorpe, critical theory and pedagogy, social justice education in the United States—and offers new conceptual tools to strengthen the framework and pedagogical extension of intercultural education. It reviews the conceptualization of intergroup contact contained in the intercultural model and highlights how it is misguided to theorize that intergroup contact alone will increase intergroup dialogue, which, in turn, will increase intercultural competence, decrease prejudice and bring about social change or social justice in schools or society at large. The book analyzes the conceptual “innovation” and cornerstone of intercultural education and interculturalism, which interculturalists believe is both the mechanism through which intercultural competence is acquired as well as the end result, itself: the competency that enhances multiperspectivity and decreases prejudice.
