Critical Perspectives on Interculturality and Literary Reimagining
Critical Perspectives in Education and Cultural Studies
I. Interculturality, Power, and Education Policy
Dervin (2016): Interculturality in Education
Dervin explains that interculturality is a confusing but crucial concept in education. It is not a fixed idea, but rather something shaped by power dynamics, ideology, and context. Schools are key places to address this concept because they bring together diverse students. However, educational policies often misuse the term. Dervin calls for a critical and reflexive approach that focuses on equality, complexity, and interaction, rather than treating culture as something simple or static.
Dervin (2016): Critiquing Cultural Misnomers
This chapter critiques how terms like culture, identity, and collectivity are often misused in research and policy. Dervin highlights specific problems:
- Culture: Often treated as fixed, leading to harmful stereotypes.
- Identity: Should be viewed as changing, multiple, and fluid, not singular.
- Collectivity: Used unevenly to label some groups but not others, reinforcing power imbalances.
Dervin argues that intercultural research should avoid these vague words and instead focus on real experiences, relationships, and specific context.
Dervin (2016): Social Imaginaries of Culture
Dervin discusses imaginaries—the shared social ideas that shape how we perceive culture and difference. He critiques five common myths that limit understanding and reinforce inequality:
- The myth that globalization is new.
- The myth that diversity is only visible (ignoring invisible differences).
- The myth that origins define us.
- The myth that difference is everything.
- The myth that “the local” is inherently more authentic.
Dervin encourages seeing culture as complex, fluid, and interconnected instead of relying on these limiting social constructs.
Piller (2017): Inequality and Intercultural Communication
Piller demonstrates how schools frequently disguise social inequality as mere cultural difference. Class differences are wrongly explained as cultural problems, which unfairly affects minority and migrant students. Teachers’ expectations are vital: a belief in students’ ability (the Pygmalion effect) helps them succeed, while low expectations (the Golem effect) harm their performance. Piller urges schools to value multilingualism and diversity as significant strengths, not as obstacles to overcome.
Holliday (2016): Cultural Blocks vs. Cultural Threads
Holliday describes two contrasting ways people conceptualize culture: cultural blocks (rigid, fixed views of culture, often leading to stereotyping) and cultural threads (flexible, shared connections and common experiences between people). Students studying abroad often navigate between these two perspectives. True intercultural learning requires focusing on threads—seeing how our experiences connect—rather than blocking understanding with fixed national ideas or stereotypes.
II. Literary Studies: Reimagining Fairy Tales
Donoghue (1997): A Queer-Feminist Cinderella Reimagining
Donoghue rewrites the Cinderella story in The Tale of the Shoe from a feminist and queer perspective. Instead of finding happiness through marriage to a prince, the main character discovers self-love and desire with another woman. The story explicitly rejects traditional gender roles and celebrates independence, equality, and self-discovery. It transforms a traditional tale of obedience into a powerful narrative of freedom and love between women.
Hennard (2009): Analyzing Donoghue’s Lesbian-Feminist Lens
Hennard analyzes how Donoghue’s collection, Kissing the Witch, reimagines classic fairy tales through a lesbian-feminist lens. Donoghue replaces the conventional “happily ever after” with stories centered on female solidarity, identity formation, and empowerment. By linking women’s voices and rewriting traditional narratives, Donoghue challenges patriarchy and creates open, self-determined endings that celebrate diversity and transformation.