On the impossibility of educating trust

Abstract

Dialogue, and also intercultural dialogue, is only possible between equals. For Francesc Carbonell, those who feel superior do not dialogue: they ignore, scorn, and give orders. The unrenounceable objective of intercultural education should be the conviction that weare more equal than different; an educational challenge, since if diversity is so obvious that one only has to approach it with curiosity and respect to discover it, equality is not so obvious, but rather it is the fruit of a moral conviction. To educate this conviction it is essential to have a project, a goal, that shows us the direction in which we should proceed. The author proposes, on the one hand, some lines along which to work on equality of opportunities in the centres which facilitate, visualise, and ritualise equality, and, on the other hand, which improve the representations of oneself, of the collective itself, and of the other through a mutual recognition. What role does trust play in all of this? An intercultural education is that which is able to deactivate the factors which generate mistrust and which facilitates the emergence of autonomous, critical, and supportive fellow citizens.