Multicultural education tends to be automatically associated with pupils but in practice it places demands on all those involved in the teaching process. Of these the most predominant role is allocated to the teacher who mediates multicultural competence. Pupil attitudes towards foreigners and cultural diversity are not only influenced by multicultural education but also by teachers’ beliefs-and teachers’ beliefs are largely influenced by personal opinions and attitudes. The author presents the results of qualitative analysis performed on the unrestricted responses of (...) 86 Czech teacher trainees and teachers on the topic of their experiences of foreigners. The analysis indicates their personal attitudes to foreigners, foreign cultures and diversity generally, the level of reflection in relation to cultural diversity, and discusses the results in relation to the wider sociocultural context. (shrink)

The article aims at integrating the cultural psychology perspective of into the multidisciplinary field of border studies. It analyses the border phenomenon as a co-genetic system. The authors investigate the psychological side of people who relate to the border out of different motives. Then, it expands some of the theoretical concepts current in border studies by introducing psychological dimensions such as intentionality and directionality. Finally, the framework is applied to two case-studies representing the northern and southern European Union frontiers: the (...) case of Estonian officer Eston Kohver in the Setumaa region on the Estonian–Russian border; and the experiences of border guards in the re-bordering process on the Spanish–Moroccan border. It offers an innovative conceptual resource based on a triadic co-genetic epistemological approach, which allows us to overcome the binary oppositions still very present in the contemporary debates in borders studies. (shrink)