‘What is the Case?’ – and ‘What Ought to be Done?’: Theorizing Action Scenarios in Intercultural Education

This chapter discusses higher education in the field of intercultural education in Denmark. It theoretically examines how students through multimodal learning processes acquire knowledge of the ethical, psychological, sociological, didactic and practical dimensions of a future work focused on integration and intercultural diversity (cf. Banks 2009; Horst & Gitz‐Johansen 2010). The chapter theorizes how the concept and phenomenon of action scenarios works as a didactic tool and impacts several dimensions of learning by bridging the gap between theory and practice. The authors illuminate and discuss the ontological and epistemological perspectives that underlie higher educational programs on intercultural pedagogy, aimed at competence-based action in practice (see Hobel, Nielsen, Thomsen & Zeuner 2015). The phenomenon and the concept of action scenarios form a central part of the educational thinking and competence development for students at bachelors and masters’ level. During each semester of their educational trajectory, students explore concrete situations and issues through independent empirical studies in a wide range of institutions and organizations: schools, daycare centers, companies, educational centers, higher education environments, to name a few. Competence based higher education for morally based intervention and solution-oriented action in practice (see Ribers, Balslev & Jensen 2021) is central to a welfare society that seeks to honor values such as humanity, inclusion, plurality and diversity – and it requires a transformation of the students’ consciousness and conscience aspiring to comprehending social reality from a new perspective. Contrasting and critical perspectives on the dark and complex aspects of this work are presented by Øland, Ydesen, Padovan-Özdemir and Moldenhawer (2019) and Padovan-Özdemir and Øland (2022).