Le dialogue spirituel comme construction altéritaire d'un meilleur vivre ensemble.

Representations of diversity are present in many dimensions of Canadian society and are also taking their place in its educational system. Over the past several decades, teachers and schools in the British Columbia school system have tried to integrate this reality of diversity in student's daily education. A constructive dialogue about diversity in school is proposed by many as an effective intervention for learning to live in harmony with each other. However, in this exchange of various cultural expressions and identities, the spiritual dimension of diversity is rarely addressed, and often forgotten. In recent time, spirituality has been on the rise and more pervasive and extensive because of globalization. It has a persistent influence in personal and public life. Leaders in education are called for a better understanding of the place of spirituality in today’s education system. Many have brought the thought that understanding spirituality in this context can help to promote cross-cultural understanding and can also help shape attitudes towards others. The potential of spiritual dialogue in education can then be more deeply exploited so that such dialogues become an integral part of school communities for better peaceful coexistence. The purpose of this research is to explore within an elementary school in British-Columbia how an effective dialogue on spirituality can be implemented and facilitated to encourage a stronger community together in the mist of our differences. Through individual and group semi-structured interviews, participants were asked for their thoughts and opinions on specific questions related to the theme of this study. From this, an analysis of these interviews merged with an analysis of the main documents on the subject was done to finaly propose some recommendations to leaders in education.