The project aimed to foster a culture of peace, deeper understanding and sensitivity to cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue free of hate speech, and democratic values. Acknowledging that adult educators are key drivers of social change through education, the priority objective was to initiate and boost the intercultural competences of adult educators and other staff in adult education. This led to sub-objectives: 1) shape attitudes of educators and learners toward other cultures, openness and tolerance for ambiguity; 2) raise awareness of one’s own and others’ cultural assumptions and their influence on judgments in intercultural relations; 3) promote cultural knowledge about specific content and processes; 4) strengthen intercultural relational skills—tolerance of uncertainty, adaptability, empathy and perceptiveness. The main operational objective was to develop and to disseminate an innovative, modern educational set, accessible to a broad group of educators and adult learners, to support acquiring and improving existing intercultural competences.
The motivation to design activities within the IntCultAE project was based on the following facts and assumptions: 1/ The global challenges of the 21st century (extremism, migration crises, populism, the war in Ukraine) constantly emphasise the need for broad dialogue between people of different cultures and effective management of growing diversity in society; 2/ Intercultural competences are key to countering hate speech, building a culture of peace and creating valuable intercultural contacts; developing them contributes to the well-being of society as a whole, especially those with fewer opportunities; 3/ Educators are the most important agents of change in the multicultural world of education; their competences in cultural awareness and unity are crucial for the effective transmission of these values; 4/ Existing training programmes are often not sufficiently advanced and tailored to the needs of adult learners; it is necessary to develop more effective methods of teaching intercultural competences, with digital forms of teaching offering enormous, hitherto untapped potential for spreading intercultural competences on a large scale and engaging adult teachers.