Conclusions [Dialogue in intercultural communities]

The essay highlights the ways in which the use of language in interactions provides important cues for analyzing the cultural presuppositions of CISV activities, through both empowering dialogues and disempowering monologues. The analysis of interactions and participants’ narratives shows both (1) dyadic hierarchical interactions associated with conflict avoidance, normative conflict resolution and instrumental translation, and (2) dialogic empowering relationships based on specific dialogic actions supporting and confirming active participation, such as promotional questions, continuers, echoes, systematic appreciations, transformative formulations, and suggestive narratives. In the activities analysed, promotion of agency and personal expressions, through coordination and dialogic mediation, seems to be more important than insistence on intercultural relationships, and improvements in this promotion seems to be crucial for education to peace in intercultural settings.