Οι σύγχρονες παιδαγωγικές προσεγγίσεις αναδεικνύουν την έννοια της
διαπολιτισμικότητας ως κυρίαρχο ζητούμενο, με γνώμονα τον σεβασμό της
πολιτισμικής ταυτότητας των μαθητών/τριών, την ειρηνική συνύπαρξη και
αλληλεπίδραση των πολιτισμών, την κοινωνική συνοχή και την πολιτισμική εξέλιξη.
Το σχολείο έχει αναπτύξει διάφορες πρακτικές που προωθούν τη
διαπολιτισμικότητα. Ωστόσο, αρκετά, ακόμα, ζητήματα παραμένουν εγκλωβισμένα
σε μονοπολιτισμικού τύπου οπτικές, δημιουργώντας μια μη ενιαίου χαρακτήρα
παιδαγωγική προσέγγιση. Ένα από τα ζητήματα αυτά είναι οι εθνικοί και
θρησκευτικοί επετειακοί εορτασμοί. Ερευνητικά, έχει καταδειχτεί ότι αποτελούν
πρακτικές ενδυνάμωσης του εθνοκεντρισμού και ενίσχυσης μιας εθνικιστικού
χαρακτήρα ιδεολογίας, ενώ, παράλληλα, οι εθνικές και θρησκευτικές ετερότητες
αγνοούνται ή αποσιωπώνται, εφαρμόζοντας μια αφομοιωτική προσέγγιση.
Η συγκεκριμένη μελέτη, αξιοποιώντας τη «διά του θεάτρου εμψύχωση»,
διερεύνησε κατά πόσο ένα ειδικά σχεδιασμένο πρόγραμμα Θεατρικού Παιχνιδιού
για την επεξεργασία θεμάτων που σχετίζονται με τους εθνικούς και θρησκευτικούς
επετειακούς εορτασμούς του ελληνικού σχολείου, μπορεί να προωθήσει τις αρχές
της διαπολιτισμικότητας, καλλιεργώντας τη διαπολιτισμική ικανότητα των
μαθητών/τριών του Δημοτικού σχολείου, δίνοντας, έτσι, τη δυνατότητα συμμετοχής
όλων των μαθητών/τριών στις εκδηλώσεις εορτασμού, χωρίς αποκλεισμούς ή
διακρίσεις, λόγω εθνικότητας ή θρησκείας.
Το πρόγραμμα που σχεδιάστηκε αποτελείται από τρία επιμέρους
προγράμματα, εκ των οποίων τα δύο αφορούν τους επίσημα θεσμοθετημένους
εθνικούς επετειακούς εορτασμούς του ελληνικού σχολείου και το ένα αφορά έναν
μη επίσημα θεσμοθετημένο θρησκευτικό εορτασμό. Η δομή του σχεδιασμού κάθε
επιμέρους προγράμματος βασίστηκε στο μοντέλο ανάπτυξης της ενσυναίσθησης
του Μ. Bennett. Η συνολική διάρκεια του προγράμματος ήταν 30 ώρες, 10 ώρες για
κάθε επιμέρους πρόγραμμα. Η εφαρμογή του πραγματοποιήθηκε σε μαθητές/τριες
της Στ’ τάξης του Δημοτικού σχολείου.
Για την αξιολόγηση της αποτελεσματικότητας του προγράμματος
ακολουθήθηκε το μοντέλο αξιολόγησης προγραμμάτων του D. Kirkpatrick και
εφαρμόστηκε ο ημιπειραματικός σχεδιασμός, με προέλεγχο και μεταέλεγχο,
εφαρμόζοντας ποσοτικές και ποιοτικές μεθόδους συλλογής των ερευνητικών
δεδομένων. Επιπλέον, χρησιμοποιήθηκαν μέσα συλλογής δεδομένων και κατά τη
διάρκεια της εφαρμογής του προγράμματος.
Τα συμπεράσματα της έρευνας αξιολόγησης της αποτελεσματικότητας του
προγράμματος ανέδειξαν τη θετική συνθήκη που παρείχε το πρόγραμμα στην
προώθηση των αρχών της διαπολιτισμικότητας, καλλιεργώντας τη διαπολιτισμική
ικανότητα των μαθητών/τριών και εισάγοντας, παράλληλα, την έννοια της
διαπολιτισμικότητας, σε επίπεδο πρακτικής, σε ένα πεδίο της σχολικής ζωής με
ισχυρό, έως σήμερα, εθνοκεντρικό χαρακτήρα.
(EL)
Modern pedagogical approaches highlight the concept of interculturalism as
a predominant issue, promoting respect for the personal and social students’
identity, peaceful coexistence and interaction of cultures, social cohesion, and
cultural development.
Schools have developed various practices that promote interculturalism.
Νevertheless, some issues, still, remain trapped in mono-cultural optics, providing
a non-cohesive pedagogical practice. One of these issues is national and religious
anniversary celebrations. Research has shown that these celebrations empower
ethnocentrism and nationalistic ideology, while, at the same time, national and
religious heterogeneities are ignored or not mentioned, applying an assimilative
approach.
This study, utilizing “drama-based pedagogy”, explored whether a specially
designed Drama Pedagogy program could be a practical application, which
promotes the principles of interculturality in education, in the field of national and
religious anniversary celebrations. The principles of interculturality in education, on
which the program focused, according to the international literature, were: education
against the ethnocentric way of thinking; education for empathy; understanding and
respect for cultural diversity, which can be cultivated by removing prejudices about
other cultures; equal access to all expressions of social life, without segregations
or exclusions; knowledge provision and skills cultivation necessary for full
participation and action in society.
The above principles integrated into the concept of intercultural competence.
Intercultural competence includes knowledge, competencies, attitudes, and
behaviour, which contribute to peaceful and constructive interaction, personally or
and socially, with persons from different cultural environments. Empathy, a nonethnocentric way of thinking, and non-commitment to prejudices for people from
different cultural environments are three significant features of intercultural
competence. These features are concluded to the principles/goals of
interculturalism in education, for the understanding and accepting of cultural “other”,
the cultural exchange and interaction.
Thus, the purpose of Drama Pedagogy program, via the implementation of
interculturalism principles on its design, was the cultivation of intercultural
competence, in the field that referred to the way of processing the themes which are
related to the national and religious anniversary celebrations of the Greek schools.
Drama Pedagogy, as defined in this study, is a "via drama" method of pedagogy
and teaching, with a pedagogical-didactic and aesthetic-artistic character. It uses a
variety of theatrical techniques, such as body-expression and improvisation, in a
playful collective process, aimed at self-expression, communication, and creativity.
The program consists of three sub-programs. Two subprograms are related
to official national anniversary celebrations of Greek schools, and one subprogram
is no official religious anniversary celebration.
Subprograms' design structure was based on M. Bennett's (1998) model for
the development of empathy, which includes six “steps”. According to Bennett the
competence of empathy can help to the creation of a more favourable climate in
intercultural communication, based on sensitivity and respect for cultural diversity,
and on the abrogation of an ethnocentric way of thinking. Also, empathy is one of
the keys elements of intercultural competence, included in almost all models which
specify this term. In parallel, empathy cultivation is one of the principles/objectives
of intercultural education.
The titles of the subprograms are as follows:
I. "On the path of time: World War II in Europe and Greece". Its content was
designed to implement in the context of the elaboration of themes related to the
national anniversary celebration of October 28, 1940.
II. "The Hymn of Love in the World". It was designed to deal with themes related to
the Christmas anniversary celebration.
III. "Freedom: Supreme good, human right". The content of this subprogram was
designed to implement in the context of the elaboration of themes related to the
national anniversary celebration of March 25, 1821.
Each subprogram was designed, in five stages. Four stages include
Bennett's six "steps" model for the development of empathy. However, it was
considered necessary to add, as an additional "step", an introductory stage to the
historical and religious themes of each subprogram.
The total duration of the program was 30 hours, 10 hours for each
subprogram. Τhe program implemented to pupils of 6th-grade of primary school.
The research for the evaluation of the program effectiveness followed the
experimental design. It was applied a "semi-experimental" design with pre/post-test,
which is among the quasi-experimental designs. Furthermore, were applied
qualitative methods for the collection of the research data, during the program
implementation.
Two elementary schools were selected randomly for the implementation and
evaluation of the program, which was coming from a group of schools which met a
particular criterion. Thus, the sampling procedure followed was the intentional
random sampling of criterion. From the five groups of the two schools, two groups
were selected randomly, which formed the experimental group, while the other three
groups were the control group. The total sample of the research consisted of 80
pupils, from whom 38 were in the experimental group and 42 in the control group.
The evaluation of the program's effectiveness based on D. Kirkpatrick's fourlevel program evaluation model. The levels are reaction; learning; behaviour;
results. From these levels were evaluated the first two of the model.
“Reaction” level refers to the pupils' response to the program. For this level
evaluated: pupils participation and their appreciation about that; pupils' valuing for
each subprogram; pupils' response to the social and representational skills required
by the program; the level of difficulty that pupils experienced when participating in
the program activities.
"Learning" level refers to the degree of knowledge increase or/and to the
cultivation of the participants' skills and abilities. The intercultural competence of
the research sample constitutes the “learning” level of program evaluation. Three
sub-components specified intercultural competence. These components were the
intermediate factors and the short-term outcomes of the program. These were
defined as the identifying variables of intercultural competence and are as follows:
a. the degree of pupils’ prejudices regarding ethnic, racial and religious differences;
c. the degree of pupils’ ethnocentrism; d. the degree of pupils’ empathy.
For the collection of data, quantitative and qualitative methods, were used.
In the quantitative methods, three questionnaires were included. included. The first
questionnaire is the “Assessment Questionnaire of Conscious Ethnic and
Interethnic Prejudices”. It based on the literature study about the measurement of
prejudices in children. It focuses on measuring children's' explicit attitudes towards
other nationalities. The second questionnaire is the printed form of the “Ambiguous
Situation Task”, (McGlothlin, 2004; McGlothlin, Killen, Edmonds, 2005) with some
modifications. The purpose of this questionnaire is to assess the implicit biases,
which may exist towards diversity, which associated with the race. The third
questionnaire is the Index of “Empathy for Children and Adolescents” (Bryant,
1982).
Also, for the data collection were used interviews, observation, and text
production. The analysis of these was used for bringing out clues of ethnic-relative
or ethnocentric attitudes, and for the evaluation of the reaction level of the program.
One type of methodological triangulation was used to establish the overall
conclusions of the evaluation survey. In particular, between-method triangulation
was applied.
The overall conclusion as to the program's effectiveness at the “learning”
level is that the program has contributed positively to three intermediate desirable
short-term outcomes, which represent the intercultural competence in which
incorporated the principles of interculturality in education. In particular, the program
was a positive condition to the abrogation of conscious and unconscious prejudices
about national, and racial diversity. However, it wasn't clearly the program's effect
on attitudes for the religious otherness. Also, it seems that the abrogation of pupils'
prejudices for the specific nationalities which are relative to their ethnic ingroup
historical issues was a difficult desideratum result when they were asked to work
together with the pupils of these nationalities on a historical issue related to the
anniversary celebration.
Concerning the second short-term outcome expected, i.e. the reduction of
the degree of ethnocentric thinking of the pupils of the experimental group, the
overall conclusion is that the program seems to have had a positive effect on it. As
to the third short-term outcome, i.e. the development of pupils' empathy, the general
conclusion is that the program has had affected their degree of empathy.
The overall conclusion about the effectiveness of the program on the
"reaction" level is that the pupils had an explicitly positive response to the activities
of the program, throughout the duration of the program implementation.
(EN)
University of Crete
