Cultural competence

Draft

Introduction

Cultural literacy or intercultural competence or being able to cope with cultural diversity is becoming increasingly important.

With increasing cultural diversity as a result of globalization, intercultural competence (IC) to interact and co-exist in multicultural environments is recognized as being very important. (Corder and U-Mackey, 2015).

Heyward (2002) cited by Deithl & Prints (2008), defines intercultural literacy as the competencies, understandings, attitudes, language, proficiencies, participation and identities necessary for effective cross-cultural engagement.

Cultural and cross-cultural psychology

According to Doris Weidemann (2001) , “investigation of intercultural interactions has demonstrated that individual psychological processes show distinct cultural patterns and, more important, that communication across cultural gaps often meets with difficulties.” She also adds, that {{quotation| Communication across cultural divides is usually described as difficult and often results in misunderstandings and failure to achieve individual or even common goals. This is especially true for persons transferring to a different cultural context, as overseas students, expatriate managers or immigrants do, and adaptation to the new cultural environment can be frustrating and painful.

Teaching intercultural literacy

Deborah Corder and Alice U-Mackey (2015) argue that educating intercultural literacy is very challenging. Cognitive aims (e.g. learners being able to pass an exam) can be met, however, meeting affective and behavioral goals might be much more difficult. According to the authors, “research shows that the development of IC is a complex process that involves cognitive, metacognitive, affective and behavioural development, and has to be intentionally developed over time (Ehrenreich 2006; Stier 2006; Crossman 2011; Deardorff 2011). As Perry and Southwell (2011) and Witte (2011) point out, there is increasing evidence that the normal classroom or lecture context with a cognitive orientation alone cannot provide the environment for learners to develop the necessary competencies. Nor will IC automatically develop by just encountering other cultures whether in the classroom, through study abroad, overseas holidays, the workplace or social settings.”

Intercultural diversity is an important component of global citizenship. Vadura (2007: 17) argues that “The knowledge, skills and values that international studies graduates gain need now more than ever to reflect understanding of social responsibility and cultural inclusivity, embodied in the concept of global citizenship.”

Johanna E. Crossman led a qualitative study that {{iscover how undergraduate and culturally diverse students experienced a collaborative, international, online, experiential project to learn about intercultural communication. Student participants in the study endorsed experiential learning in culturally diverse groups about intercultural communication through intercultural communication.}}. The study involved students from Australia, international students from Asia (in Australia) and students from the Netherlands. The task was to “to respond to a case study that concerned a franchisor in Australia considering two expressions of interest from potential franchisees in the Netherlands and Hong Kong.”. More specificially, members of the these three populations were required to act as "communication consultants" to advise the fanchisor of any potential intercultrual communication implications between the Australian organisation and the Dutch and Asian franchise. In other words, each type of student had to play and reflect upon his own cultural inheritage.

In this context, the author found that “learning about intercultural communication through intercultural communication is a powerful activity that responds to the need for learning approaches that internationalise the business curriculum in universities and develop global citizenship. The capacity of the experiential project appeared to engage students in ways that seemed to be perceived as authentic and relevant to their lives and work. The study has also illuminated how participants try to make sense of intercultural communication by juxtaposing personal experience with theoretical literature. Whilst stereotyping did occur, the observation can be used in the design of future activities so that the potential for meta-cognitive approaches can be developed further through asking questions about what stereotyping is and how, why and under what circumstances individuals might engage in it, particularly when tension and conflict exists in intercultural communication and indeed, culturally diverse learning contexts.”

Representing cultural representations

Structure Formation Technique

Weideman's (2001) study focuses on subjective theories hold by German Immigrants in Taiwan and that can be verbally explicated and reconstructed by way of dialogue between researcher and participant. The research method goes through the following steps:

• A semi-standardized interview that will try to elicit the contents of the subjective theories
• A visualization of the theory structure ,using representational rules of the Heidelberg structure formation technique, (Heidelberger Strukturlegetechnik, SCHEELE & GROEBEN, 1988)

Based on this Heidelberg structure formation technique, she developed a set of interview questions and rules for representing the theory.: “a differentiation was made according to the outcome of actions (face gained or face lost) and the person concerned (self or other).” The combination of these two dimensions will define four semantic fields, namely a) to lose face, b) to gain face, c) to hurt the other person's face, d) to give the other person face.

Results then can be represented graphically, for example like this:

Part of a subjective theory structure on "face" (reproduced from Weidemann, 2001)

Arts-Informed Research

Guruge et al. (2015) describe an arts-informed technique “to understand the changes in refugee youth's roles and responsibilities in the family within the (re)settlement context in Canada. The study involved 57 newcomer youths from Afghan, Karen, or Sudanese communities in Toronto, who had come to Canada as refugees. The data collection method embedded a drawing activity within focus group discussions.”

This study also included eight refugee youth peer researchers from the three communities. In line with community-based participatory research principles, {{quotation|Peer researchers received three months of research training and were actively involved in paid capacity in all phases of the study, including research design, data collection, data analysis, and writing. Guruge et al. (2015:[14]) describe the elicitation process as follows:

Each participant was invited to draw two pictures:

1. one depicting pre-migration roles and responsibilities,
2. and the second depicting post-migration roles and responsibilities.

The participants were given flip chart paper and color pens, and 10 to 15 minutes to complete the activity. The drawings were then displayed on the walls around the room. Each participant was asked to briefly present her/his drawing to the group. Once all participants had their individual turns reflecting on and explaining their drawings to the group, the floor was open to all for reflection and clarification of the drawings within the group. This was followed by a semi-structured focus group discussion of roles and responsibilities in which participants were encouraged to refer to their drawings wherever appropriate. In a later part of the focus group discussion, the youths were also asked to list the services they had used and the services they needed on sticky notes, which were added to the flip chart drawings.

A key lesson learnt was that adequate time and opportunities must be given to participants to (1) create the drawings, (2) to interpret and discuss the drawings and (3) to complete or change the drawings as a result of group discussions. Facilitators must attempt to clarify and expand links between drawings and discussions.

According to the authors [paragraph 38], “The multiple data collection methods (i.e., drawings and individual reflections on them, and focus group discussions) we used in this study were complementary: the drawings provided unique insights into certain aspects of their lives. For example, the magnitude of the difference in youth's (built and natural) environments came up in the drawings that were not discussed in the focus groups. The sense of cohesion versus scattered and chaotic patterns in the drawings is also interesting. On the other hand, the focus group discussions provided unique information on other aspects of their lives, such as racism. In addition, the drawings also provided more contextual information that enriched the understanding gained from the focus groups.”

Before and after drawing by Participant 3 in the Afghan female 16-19 years focus group

Data analysis and interpretation involved several levels of analysis and was based on participant's own explanations:

1. a reflective dialogue between each participant and his own drawing
2. a group dialogue concerning all the drawings of the group
3. reflections of the peer (refugee youth) researchers from each group in response to questions about (1) and (2) from the rest of the research team
4. the research teams reflections across the three groups

A list of themes and supporting excerpts was finally established in the form of a table.

Similar research was conducted by Frey and Cross (2011) on overcoming poor youth stigmatization and invisibility through art.

Technologies for cultural literacy

According to Anstadt (2015), an environment like second life has several affordances:

• The ability to role play simulations without compromising the identity of the individual. Yet at the same time there, is a relationship between users virtual lives and their real lives.
• A simulated environment offers the potential for a range of experiences that is not available in "real live", including connecting with people that otherwise cannot be met.

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