Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000–000 Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia WCES 2012 Intertextuality and Intermediality: their roles in Cross-cultural Education Asunción López-Varela-Azcárate Universidad Complutense Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria 28040, Madrid, Spain Abstract The paper establishes the value of artistic multimodal texts as meta-cognitive tools that stage the repetition of symbolic forms affecting psychic and non-explicit levels and giving way to the emotional interiorization of cultural values. It revises research on intertextuality and intermediality and presents them as cross-cultural and critical tools. Their presence in literary fiction and other artistic forms such as online creative art is contemplated as a semiotic vantage point that helps metacognition, that is, to be conscious of how we learn when we learn. This consciousness is the first step towards intersubjective and intercultural positions. . © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, Intercultural Education, Multimodality, Intermediality, Remediation; 1. Introduction: Intercultural Education in a Global World The paradigm of interculturalism supports the proposition that cultures are enriching themselves in/via their mutual contacts. Within a context of growing population movements, the global expansion of economy and the revolution in the ways information is transmitted world-wide through the internet, culture, the specific entity and content of social groups and expression of their diversity, is becoming increasingly important. Cultural traditions are resilient and spread over long periods of time without apparent change, but cultures have always been hybrid. In recent years, acculturation has become a central issue because individuals in diaspora - foreign workers, international businesspeople, tourists or students in international exchange programs- can experience living and working in another country as a stressful situation. The new environment might differ markedly in culture and lifestyle. However, studies show that most people prefer to integrate (in multicultural pluralist societies) rather than become assimilated (in melting-pot situations) to the host culture. Although in some cases separation and marginalization, leading to anxiety, occur, findings in cross-cultural research offer a basis for training programs that develop intercultural sensitivity and competence. Such skills are not only of great importance for people who work in institutions attending to immigrants but also to employees of educational institutions where the number of migrants of different ethnic origins grows every day. Educators can be considered central transmitters of socio-cultural behaviour patterns and of cultural values. Thus, it is important that they are trained in socio-cultural sensibility and intercultural competence so that they will be able to disseminate cross-cultural knowledge, creating the basis of a society gradually developing towards pluralism and interculturalism.