Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on social and spatial structures of bicultural schools (German-Sorbian) in the Lusatia region. It analyses how the narrative and structural siting of biculturalism is linked to a specific understanding of space oscillating between sharing and dividing the cultural diversity.

Paper long abstract:

In Lusatia different bicultural schools exist where the "Sorbian share" varies from courses on the Sorbian minority language and bilingual teaching up to the naming of the school as "Sorbian" or "Sorbian-German" one. Where in parts of the region the Sorbian share refers to some continuity, in other parts only with interrupts and after revitalization programs new bicultural school settings emerged. Next to recent developments of new forms of bilingual teaching also cultural events or the opening of new spaces like cultural clubs right up to the conception and construction of new school complexes are intimately connected with negotiations of biculturalism.

Using a hybridological perspective with a diversity-aware focus on the dialogicity and processuality of intercultural encounters the paper wants to show on the one hand how biculturalism in the region is reflected in the architecture and in the spatial arrangements inside the schools. On the other hand it will examine how this spatial negotiating of the Sorbian share inside the institutions is linked to a specific understanding of space and cultural diversity by the actors oscillating between clear spatial divisions of cultural homogenous sectors and hybrid overlappings and interferences. This observation is part of the general debate on the institution school: from the participating persons (teachers, pupils, administrators) over to curriculums, up until the whole corporate identity of the schools.

The empirical research concerns the German-Sorbian example, but can as well serve for the current discussions about interculturality/transculturality at schools in Germany and Europe.