The concept of interculturality is complex and its full meaning seems unknown to many schools and leisure time centers. How can teachers at leisure time centers teach students the intercultural approach if they don’t have the knowledge? This essay takes its starting point from our self-experienced intercultural dilemma situations at our leisure time centers. We ask ourselves if we acted interculturally in those situations, and what difficulties we can identify with regards to intercultural teaching. 

The purpose with this essay is to reflect on the meaning and difficulties with intercultural teaching, intercultural competence and how interculturality based on our mission and the conditions given teachers in leisure time centers can be understood. We have chosen to write a scientific essay as a method, where the writing helps us reflect over our practical action and the observations we’ve done, seen in relation to scientific theories which we consider relevant to our research.

We have understood that the intercultural concept includes more than being attentive to cultures from different countries. It’s an approach to how we treat one another and cultures that are different to our own, and how we can be enriched with new perspectives and how to work against our own and students' stereotypes. We realize that society and the media are spreading these prejudices. This, combined with lack of intercultural competence, are key factors which complicate the intercultural mission. Thus, allowing for the risk that intercultural meetings are tainted with conflicts, rather than being harmonious and open. We have come to believe that teachers in leisure time centers with intercultural competence actually can transfer the intercultural approach to the students by modelling and communicating the values in daily situations. Moreover, we find it important to be aware of the dominant power aspect in intercultural meetings, which can affect relationships and the quality of the conversations.