Call for Papers Vol. 24 N. 2/2026 - Intercultural education and interdisciplinary dialogue: towards a cooperative science of interculturality
The special issue, Intercultural education and interdisciplinary dialogue: toward a cooperative approach to interculturality, aims to address the intersections between intercultural education and other disciplines. The complexity of intercultural exchange necessitates a vision that goes beyond the paradigms of individual disciplines, promoting connections and unification between disciplines, languages and educational approaches. What can intercultural exchange and intercultural education learn from seemingly distant fields, such as medicine, law, the natural sciences, mathematics, the arts, history, economics, and politics? How can we redefine relationships with other human and social sciences? How can we enhance encounters with other "educations," such as gender, democracy, or holistic ecology? How can we strengthen, across the board, the references to the ethical and moral values that characterize the intercultural perspective?
Research in the social sciences suggests that cooperation, altruism, and social learning are deeply ingrained in our species—traits that precede culture itself. At the same time, it reveals how educational institutions both reproduce and transform the social patterns of inequality and interdependence in modern societies. From this perspective, intercultural pedagogy becomes a meeting ground between biological explanations and cultural interpretations of education, transcending the traditional dichotomies between nature and culture, individual and society, mind and context.
Aiming to promote a simultaneously humanistic and scientifically grounded vision of intercultural education, which can integrate the biological, cognitive, social and cultural dimensions of human life, the editors welcome contributions of a theoretical, empirical or comparative nature on topics including (but not limited to):
- Natural and Life Sciences
- Biology, neuroscience, and evolutionary perspectives on intercultural education
- Medicine, health, and care practices in intercultural contexts
- Social, Economic, and Political Sciences
- Sociology, economics, and political science in intercultural education and training
- Social justice, law, global citizenship and intercultural education
- Educational policies in pluralistic societies
- Humanities and Cultural Studies
- History, anthropology, and philosophy of intercultural education
- Literature, arts, and performative languages as spaces of intercultural encounter
- Linguistics, translation, and intercultural communication
- Cross-cutting and Integrative Approaches
- Physical education and sport as tools for inclusion and cooperation
- Epistemology of interdisciplinarity and models of dialogue between knowledge systems
- Ethical and political dimensions of intersectional approaches to interculturality
- Intercultural education in dialogue with other “educations”: for peace, democracy, ecology, and gender equality
Abstract by 15 December 2025.
Scholars are invited to submit an abstract for the attention of the editor(s) by 15 December 2025. The abstract, which will consist of a minimum of 300 to a maximum of 350 words. It should contain: (i) a presentation of the topic; (ii) the nature of the text (research, studies and essays, etc.); (iii) a brief statement of the topic, adequately justified; (iv) the methodology (in case of research); and (v) brief conclusions. Abstracts should be sent (with the subject Abstract: Intercultural Education and Interdisciplinary Dialogue) to the following email address: educazione.interculturale@unibo.it and to the editors (nicola.pensiero@unimore.it and federico.zannoni@unimore.it).
Acceptance or rejection of the abstract by December 20, 2025.
Full contribution upload by 15 May 2026.
The complete contribution (maximus 35.000 types) must be submitted no later than May 15, 2026, and must be written in one of the following languages: English, French, Italian, or Spanish. The guidelines for authors are available at the following address: https://educazioneinterculturale.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
The full article in .doc format and the metadata must be uploaded to the journal platform via the submission wizard from the "Make a submission" link on the journal homepage https://educazione-interculturale.unibo.it/index and sent to the email addresses of the issue editors:
Double-blind refereeing will follow. Papers that successfully pass the double-blind refereeing will be published in the issue of November 2026.
