Introduction and Justification

 

The IV International Congress of Intercultural Education is going to provide relevant and updated information to participants to facilitate the construction of an intercultural society participated by persons of different origins and cultural referents. It is important the training of professionals that work in the educative sphere to favor intercultural societies, however there are also other professionals that have an important role in the society and should participate; for this reason, this edition of the Congress intends the training, or at least the sensitization, of professionals working in the area of health with autochthonous and immigrant persons; professionals working in the companies with workers from different origins, and as a transversal vector of these three areas to develop the intercultural competences in genre.

The vertiginous speed as the changes appear in this society makes necessary to re-think the concept of training. The changes that put the pressure on the structure of the society force the permanent adjustment of their elements to adapt them to the needs generated by them (Fernández, 2000:33). Values, fashions, uses, structures, behaviors and ways of proceeding are submitted to rhythm of frenetic change. This changeable context impose us the necessity of continuous adaptation to the circumstances to avoid the phase out.

The changes are so important and accelerated that the received academic education of professionals does not guarantee the answers to the new situations appearing in their jobs. In the present society, the expiry of acquired skills to work is permanent; therefore every day, the continuous education of professionals is more important and more considered.

There are two crucial and significant phenomena that are favoring a society characterized by the change; on the one hand, the globalization processes that are revealing the expiry of state-nation and, on the other, the new migrant phenomena (De Lucas, 2003). And we speak of new migrant movements because the passage of persons from one place to other is not new (Fermoso, 1992). The new aspect of present migrations is their volume, and the speed and adaptive strategies used by the new emigrants/immigrants.

The globalization phenomena are promoting the “knowledge society”; in this society the technological advances and the liberalization of communications are going to produce a radical change. We are moving from a fragmented industrial society to a globalized knowledge society. In this is perceived a certain dissolution of borders that make the national and cultural specificities be influenced by a certain type of world economy, the capitalism, and a unique system, the technologic (Jerez, 2002). In this world, the communication media and the new information technologies remove the borders facilitating the real time contact of persons all over the world belonging to different cultural groups. The global concept is not only a physical and geographic reality but also virtual.