Language and intercultural citizenship education for a culture of peace: The Malvinas/Falklands project

In recent decades the critical turn in language education has gained tremendous teaching and research attention. Within this context, this chapter describes an online international project with university language students in Argentina and England as an approach to create a culture of peace through the discussion of the Malvinas/Falklands Conflict. Given the sensitive nature of this topic, the chapter examines the active political engagement and civic participation of the students to promote self and social change. It also offers an analysis of the levels of criticality achieved and the intercultural citizenship competences developed. An overview of the implementation of IT tools used in the online intercultural communication phase of the project is also provided, such as Wiki, Facebook, Skype and Elluminate Live! (a virtual classroom made available for the project by the University of East Anglia). This chapter reveals that the confrontation the students experienced with linguistic and cultural otherness stimulated their critical analysis, whilst focusing on developing a respectful understanding of the event and the need for cooperative conflict resolution.