From activities to interfaces: clustering (inter)cultural education in Europe

This study maps how (inter)cultural education is enacted in European secondary schools and identifies the classroom conditions that make activities yield lasting learning. We analysed documented activities from 2023–2024 across 25 countries, grouped them into recurring activity types, and conducted semi-structured interviews with 36 secondary teachers in 10 countries; the pan-European ‘Physiognomy at School’ programme provided one closely examined case within the wider sample. Eight archetypes emerged. Deeper intercultural learning depended less on activity format and more on four interfaces: (1) norms-before-content with structured debriefs; (2) planned translanguaging in which multilingual drafting feeds discussion in a shared classroom language; (3) co-dependent collaboration with visible drafts and revisions in exchanges; and (4) early, process-oriented assessment that rewards students for refining their views. Across countries, different constraints shaped which interface needed the most support, but strong quality was possible in both high- and low-resource settings. The study shows that activities work best when designed as connected sets of classroom practices and offers a practical typology linking dialogue, translanguaging, exchange design, and assessment to observable outcomes.