国際理解教育の現況と課題

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the status quo and problems of Education for International Understanding (International Education). In 1983, Unesco held two significant international meetings on this education. One was the Intergovernmental Conference on Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education Relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, with a View to Developing a Climate of Opinion Favourable to the Strengthening of Security and Disarmament, Unesco House, 12-20 April 1983. The other was the International Congress on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Associated Schools Project, Sofia, Bulgaria, 12-16 September 1983. Under the present serious international situations, we are confronted with many problems to be solved in the education for international understanding. We are now discussing about Intercultural Education, Cross-cultural Education, Multi-national Education, Environmental Education, Development Education, Disarmament Education, Peace Education, Futures Education and Global Education, etc., all of which are approaches to the education for international understanding in a broader sense. These can be classified into two large groups, that is, cultural approach and problem-solving, which must be integrated into a more comprehensive dimension. It can be said that the international education has become very much diversified today. Therefore, it is necessary for us to reorganize theories and practices in the field of education. The global education may give us good suggestions and ideas for this kind of reorganization.