Intercultural Education as a Means to Foster Equality in Diversity – Understanding ‘Participation’ in the Austrian Vielfalter Initiative

Social cohesion is clearly at stake in Europe. A key to achieving it is striking the balance between equality and diversity by understanding it as a complex, multi-layered problématique, that needs to be tackled in terms of being able to ‘live together differently’. This paper asks about the contributions of a socially innovative initiative in the field of intercultural education in Austria, the Vielfalter, to social cohesion. In particular, the article scrutinises the Vielfalter’s approach to ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’, quasi-concepts that have become buzzwords in social innovation.