Journal of Education and Human Development

Teaching Cultural Diversity: Service-Learning in Second Language Classrooms
Isabel Torrijos Martí

Abstract
The history of migratory movement’s dates back to Antiquity but it is true that thanks to the technological and communications advances, migratory movements have increased in recent years. The management of cultural diversity, therefore, is not a problem of the present but it is necessary that it becomes one of the challenges of the 21st Century in order to put an end to the wave of violent and anti-tolerant attitudes. For this reason, social and educational researches with the aim of promoting tolerant and respectful attitudes among citizens have been developing from the middle of the 20th Century to the present. The study seeks to make a theoretical synthesis on the issue for then, suggesting the service-learning as a methodological proposal to address cultural diversity in the schools but in the community also. The most striking conclusion is that active methodologies, the ones in which the teacher takes a backseat and students have all the tools to achieve knowledge, are the most effectives when it refers to manage diversity. Students are more motivate to work as a team, to respect and to create an atmosphere of exchanging opinions without having to do anything else than collaborating between them.

Full Text: PDF    DOI: 10.15640/jehd.v7n2a14