Formal education and intercultural capital: Towards attachment beyond narrow ethno‐national boundaries?

Schooling and school management can play an important part in promoting inclusive forms of national attachment, intercultural dialogue and reflexive engagements with the “Unfamiliar”. The (inter) personal benefits of intercultural experiences and skills are widely acknowledged. But can we really learn to be intercultural? And what are the prospects of attachment beyond narrow ethno‐national boundaries for less privileged members of society? These questions lie at the heart of the present article. Conceptually, the article draws on Bourdieu's notions of habitus and cultural capital. Within this framework, I regard people's attachments to country (and beyond) as learned and habituated, yet open to modification and reconstruction through reflexive agency, educational practices and the acquisition of intercultural capital.