Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

Years’ Religious War in the 17 th Century, the national politics of the ascending Europeanhegemonial powers since the 18 th Century and finally the destructions of NaziGermany in the 20 th Century), did not manage to completely destroy the traces of acommon cultural identity. There still seems to exist certain common cultural aspects,which throughout all the differences constitute something like a cultural identity ofEurope. (c.f. Nida-Rümelin, 1996)Does a European culture exist?Is there a common European culture? What characterises and what threatens it? Whatis culture and how can it be defined? On the one side there is the common groundof having European origins in the Greek classical period, with the connection offree culture and scientific rationality. There was also the Roman tradition of stateand law, which did not lose its strength and influence during the centuries until thepresent times. On the other hand, the Christian religion contributed substantially toa cultural identity of Europe. And there are at least humanism and enlightenment,which initiated the cultural conditions for democracy, autonomous science and socialprogress during modern times. A European education and science community couldbe developed from early modern times, into which became variously interlaced thebasement of the cultural identity of Europe.Rationality, critical thinking, Christianity, human rights as well as democracyand a modern version of the welfare state – “culture” seems to be more than a termfrom everyday speech, with which for example we can speak about music, aboutliterature or science (even if especially in this point European-wide mutual influencesare obvious).Indeed, the term “culture” must be extended in a social and anthropological sense:Hereby is meant a culture of values, value orientations, ways of living, adjustmentto ecological conditions, thus the kind of the life which differs within Europe andchanges continuously – in European and global interaction.By setting the term identity to equate to “a basis”, one could speak of a commoncultural identity. Within this identity the diversity and/or the presence of differentcurrents will be always mentioned and particularly emphasized. The difference of thecultural and ethnical societies and communities leads to a unit with diversification.This is a (and perhaps the) typical characteristic of European culture. The variety oflanguages additionally belongs to these varieties. In the next section some considerationsabout this will be presented.The world of European languagesArticle 15 of the common explanation to the 40 th Anniversary of the Elysée contractencourages the idea of diversity: “The variety of the languages is a wealth of the EuropeanUnion. Learning languages is the source of the development and a chance forthe young generation” (Schröder/Chirac 2003; translation by the author). In today’sEurope of the European Union 20 official languages exist in the context of 25 States.Beyond that, there are an additional large number of regional languages, which arepartly spoken by minority groups that live within the European Union. Beyond the254