Good Intentions Are Not Enough: A Decolonizing Intercultural Education

Overview & Synopsis

Despite unquestionably good intentions on the part of most people who call themselves intercultural educators, most intercultural education practice supports, rather than challenges, dominant hegemony, prevailing social hierarchies, and inequitable distributions of power and privilege. In this essay I describe a philosophy of decolonizing intercultural education--an intercultural education dedicated, first and foremost, to dismantling dominant hegemony, hierarchies, and concentrations of power and control. I argue that attaining such an intercultural education requires not only subtle shifts in practice and personal relationships, but also important shifts of consciousness that prepare us to see and react to the socio-political contexts that so heavily influence education theory and practice.