Abstract:

During the process of globalisation Lithuania has joined the culturally pluralistic, modern and deeply interrelated world society and “the intercultural education has become one of important spheres of modernisation of the national identity” (Šaulienė, 2015, p. 198). Acceptance of tolerance and differences between “own” and “other” cultures, together not leaving aside the cherishing and maintaining of national values has become a relevant scientific problem. Therefore it is possible to state that “tradition and novelty within the historical discourse appear as undividable genders of culture” (Kačerauskas, 2010), when any transformation of culture becomes an important object of interdisciplinary (including education) surveys.

After the content analysis of the Lithuanian strategic education documents (Bilbokaite, 2015), it was found out that that Lithuanian comprehensive schools seek to cherish interinstitutional links, youth cooperation by transferring the experience. Also the importance of equal opportunities as well as assurance of rights is stressed and the necessity of solving problems of migration with a parallel solving of problem within the sphere of the higher education, seeking to attract incoming students, to increase the mobility. Together, assurance of the diversity of educational environments is stressed with a civil, national, ethical education.

Scientific literature also exposes the attitude that the growing diversity is dangerous for the identity. The problem of the survey is offered by generalisation of implemented surveys when it is possible to state that “in order to perceive how complex the contemporary world and its intercultural aspects are, it is worth to analyse wider premises of intercultural education” (Bilbokaitė, 2012, p. 409), because there is a lack of such surveys in Lithuania.
This affected the aim of this paper – to reveal conceptions of interculturality and expression in the educational practice.

The survey was organised in 2015 and it is a part of the dissertation survey. After analysis of practical expression of interculturality in documents general expressions of interculturality within the context of curricular and extracurricular activities were highlighted. In order to reveal conceptions of interculturality and expression in the educational practice of the school community members, methods of the survey was used, i.e. essay (participants of the research – 25 pupils of 11th–12th forms), content analysis. Methodological provisions of the survey is based by philosophy of social constructivism and critical theory.

Empiric survey of attitude of pupils’ revealed that the culture is perceived as the homogenised expression of various factors, which affected the transformation of the mankind, reflected in everyday activity and thinking of the subject while the interculturality – as the interaction of heterogeneous cultures. It also has showed that interculturality in Educational Practice was recognizable through informal activities (exchange projects, festivals, events, volunteering etc.), formal operational classroom activities and international cooperation.

Keywords:

Interculturality, Intercultural Education, Expression, Educational Practice.