Culture 14

Intercultural competence is the capacity to dominate.

Paul Mecheril et al (2010): Bachelor | Master: Migrationspädagogik. Weinheim: Beltz, p. 77ff.

Paul Mecheril (born 1962) is a German education researcher. He researches education in the migration society from a racism-critical perspective.

Mecheril criticises intercultural competence as diversity management from a dominant perspective. Within it, it is considered desirable that (usually white) people acquire so-called intercultural competence through further training and stays abroad. Paradoxically, however, migrants and people of colour are usually not recognised as having these intercultural skills. Why is it that migrant strategies for surviving in a racist society are not understood as intercultural competence?

*Paul Mecheril et al (2021): Regimes of Belonging - Schools - Migrations: Teaching in (Trans)National Constellations. Wiesbaden: Springer.

2010