Intercultural Competence in Schools: The Role of Leadership and Organizational Contexts

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-599-7_18How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Intercultural Competence; Intercultural Education; Educational Leadership; Inclusive Schools; Distributed Leadership; Teacher Leadership; School Culture; Action Research; Democratic Citizenship; Social Justice

Abstract

This paper examines intercultural competence in schools as a systemic and practice-oriented dimension of contemporary education, moving beyond compensatory or emergency approaches aimed only at migrant pupils. It argues that intercultural education should be understood as a whole-school project grounded in democratic citizenship, inclusion, mutual recognition, and social justice. Intercultural competence is framed as “knowledge in action”: a dynamic, reflective, and relational capacity shaped through daily educational practices, empathy, cultural intelligence, and critical awareness of one’s own assumptions. The paper highlights the central role of educational leadership in creating the organizational, relational, and symbolic conditions necessary for intercultural change. Rather than relying solely on the headteacher, it emphasizes distributed and teacher leadership, collaborative responsibility, community engagement, and reflective professional cultures. Methodologies such as action research, self-evaluation, participatory teaching practices, induction protocols, and community education agreements are presented as tools for transforming school cultures. Ultimately, the paper proposes intercultural leadership as a process of “reculturing” schools, transforming diversity from a challenge to be managed into a structural resource for educational innovation, inclusion, and democratic participation.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this chapter or parts of it.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Massimiliano Fiorucci
AU  - Veronica Riccardi
AU  - Alessandra Casalbore
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/31
TI  - Intercultural Competence in Schools: The Role of Leadership and Organizational Contexts
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Management and Entrepreneurial Leadership for K-12 Education Excellence (LEADK12 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 298
EP  - 310
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-599-7_18
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-599-7_18
ID  - Fiorucci2026
ER  -