"Unequal diversity" as a knowledge alliance: An encounter of Paulo Freire's dialogical approach and transdisciplinarity

Purpose The purpose of this self-reflective paper is to focus on practical efforts to combat inequality and foster intercultural dialogue in education. It introduces knowledge alliances, a type of social practice open for education technologies. Design/methodology/approach The paper is structured in a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part ledge production is divided in two sections: the first one summarizes transdisciplinarity and Paulo Freires dialogical pedagogy as two innovative approaches to knowledge sharing, production and appropriation. In the second section knowledge alliances are presented as innovative forms of lasting learning and research partnerships. The empirical part presents a case study and discusses the potential and limits of this specific knowledge alliance. Findings The paper demonstrates the importance of a partnership approach to combat inequality and discrimination. Knowledge alliance is a normative as well as an analytical concept to grasp the dynamics of lasting and transdisciplinary cooperation. For multicultural education, their implementation can be supported by learning technologies.