Europe and the pedagogical challenge of interculturality: awareness and personal participation beyond the utopia

In western states today, and not only in these quarters, there are noteworthy and dangerous oscillations between extreme forms of nationalism and more democratic trends. There is a tendency to shut off towards other nations, to see one’s own nationality as a cultural and traditional dimension in need of protection, currently under threat from invasion by other ethnicities, who cannot easily be assimilated to one’s own values and principles. How, then, is it possible to overcome the appeal of ideologies of resistance of nationalistic, conservative type? In all probability, an excellent first step is offered by the new pedagogical rationality of education for democracy, which is at the head of the current of critical pedagogy of emancipation, calling for responsible choices and direct participation in the democratic life of a civil society.