Re-thinking Janusz Korczak’s work from an intercultural perspective

Abstract

This essay is a contribution to the commemorative conference of the Hungarian Pedagogical Society’s Section for Children’s Interests - Korczak Working Committee, and discusses the place of Janusz Korczak’s pedagogy in the intercultural pedagogical thinking. It outlines the main approaches that can be identified in intercultural situations, understood as the meeting and clashes of cultures, and interprets these approaches through Korczak’s work. It presents five main approaches, based on Portera (2011): the oppression of the weak, assimilation, segregation and ghettoization, universalism, and the transformative approach, which are distinct from each other, but which appear simultaneously, at the same time, in a common dynamic in Korczak’s life, work and oeuvre. Keywords: intercultural approaches, Korczak’s pedagogy, meeting of cultures