Intercultural Competence

After an introduction, we discuss the conflicts that occurred in a highly experimental course setting, in which we implemented a student-centered course in urban higher education with a constructivist, blended-learning design. We analyse to which extent the cultural country profiles from our Learning Culture Survey suffice to prevent intercultural conflicts in education and provide support for the design of respective interventions.

""International conflict coverage as intercultural communication
Intercultural communication occurs when large and important cultural differences create dissimilar interpretations" (Lustig/ Koester 2010: 52)

If this problem focussing definition of intercultural communication seems familiar to the reader, it could be reasoned by the occurrence in the last weeks’ media coverage according to the Maidan protests in Ukraine reaching its peak in the beginning of March with diplomatic threats and bilateral accusations. Hilary Clinton is, perhaps not without a reason, comparing Putin’s strategy of ‘just securing Russians in Ukraine’
with Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia (Robes Meeks 2014 and SZ 2014h), Putin and Yanukovych claim the protesters as fascists putschists (SZ 2014k), German leftists scent a counterrevolution of bourgeois and fascist forces (Arbeitermacht 2014, indymedia 2014, MLPD 2014, SZ 2014b) and German mainstream media celebrate the folk’s victory. These differences in interpretation occurred mostly in the end of January when the before 2 months lasting mainly peaceful protests converted into riots and radical fascist fighters appeared more frequently in media pictures. Here, a weakness of modern protest and conflict communication became aware.
Transnational communication and delivery systems now facilitate the internationalization and even globalization of some protests […] and today’s complex media ecology […] offer unprecedented opportunities for the wider dissemination of political protest and dissent – from the local to the global

(Cottle 2008: 855) While, according to Simon Cottle, news coverage has been getting more direct and international and, therefore, foreign protest movements and revolts are omnipresent in today’s media, intercultural differences are often ignored. Hence we may misjudge these movements mistakenly since we have fundamentally different senses for categories like
in- and out-group or power distance or analyse all happenings in relation to us and our value system driven by an enormous
eurocentrism  ignoring cultural asymmetry and identities. For analysing these problematic reinterpretations of international protest, I use a biased quantitative analysis of German print media online coverage assessing the frame of news transported via linguistic elements and support this with a qualitative analysis of a few chosen exemplifying articles by quoting some parts of them. I will mostly use articles of "Süddeutsche Zeitung" since this is one of the highest quality newspapers in Germany, not too left or too right for providing an exemplifying picture and was endeavoured of being objective. Both analyses, qualitative and quantitative, are embedded into the following chapters which each pick one of the mentioned intercultural communication categories as core."

The paper discusses the provision of social inclusion of disadvantaged children. Based on a review of relevant literature, research, and other documents, we found that high-quality preschool programs and competent professionals, who are sensitive to issues of social inclusion, significantly contribute to ensure the social inclusion of disadvantaged children. We present some of the factors that are, in the context of pre-school programs, associated with the provision of social inclusion (respect for diversity, inclusion, equal opportunities, justice in education; child-centred and culturally, developmentally and individually appropriate practice). A review of competencies of graduates of Early Childhood Education study program (first level; all three Faculties of Education in Slovenia), which can be linked to the provision of social inclusion of disadvantaged children, was carried out. In conclusion, the need for continuing professional development and refection, which both enable adaptation to changes, with which educators are facing, is emphasized.

"This study analyses the experiences of four teenage girls from the north east of England who volunteered to participate in a variety of community drama activities as part of an international drama in education congress in Belém, Brazil, in 2010.  The minutiae of their daily routines, living and working on an island in the Amazon delta, was captured through diary-writing, photographs and participant observation and later scrutinised for evidence of intercultural learning along with post-project interviews and group reflection activities.  The study takes a broad view of what might constitute ‘drama’ in this instance, aligning itself with the global scope of the congress rather than relying on a fixed idea of cultural specificity.  The congress itself drew not only on accepted Western definitions of drama in education but also included indigenous models and other world views.  The study therefore presents several layers of interculturality at play in a simultaneous fashion; the Brazilian setting with its diverse population; the global gathering with its international delegates and wide-ranging programme of events; the experiences of the congress participants (including the 4 British teenagers and the author).

The researcher takes a non-paternalistic view in respect of education and international development, focusing mostly on the benefits of intercultural activity for the visiting Western volunteers rather than those that might be derived by the host community.  Finally a question is asked about the praxis of drama in development issues.
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""Although the Erasmus Programme is celebrating its 25th anniversary, the effects of international study experiences have only recently drawn a wider interest from researchers in the field (Dervin, 2009). This presentation addresses the question of how intercultural competence (IC) is conceived by a mixed group of home and international students in a postgraduate programme in development studies, in which the authors deliver a module on intercultural communication.
The study aims to discover the explicit and implicit meanings that students (n=23) attribute to IC through a combination of content analysis (presence, prominence) and discourse analysis (modality, metaphor). Data was collected at the beginning and towards the end of the programme in three forms: (1) written definitions of IC in response to open questions; (2) oral clarification of positions on a series of statements regarding IC; and (3) written narrative accounts of recent intercultural encounters (Hoffman, 2009). Next, students were invited for an interview at which they commented on the findings, relating observed changes in their representation of IC to events and experiences in and outside the classroom.
In conclusion, the authors reflect on how the research outcomes have informed their practice as teachers of intercultural communication.""