The need for intercultural dialogue: One approach to start the conversation

This semester I will finally get the opportunity to teach intercultural communication again. It has been many years and I feel it is long overdue. However, many things have changed over the last 20 years, one of which is how communication, dialog, and culture is taught in our schools. More than ever I see students come into my classroom with fossilized concepts, having been educated in a system in which knowledge is content and facts. As a result, I spend much of my classes trying to teach students how to think and communicate critically.

I foresee a course like critical communication creating very uncomfortable conversations. However, I want my students to engage in these conversations, yet at the same time feel safe to extend their knowledge boundaries. This is not always easy to achieve. So I decided to begin the class with an exercise that will hopefully allow them to access their emotions, perceptions, and beliefs in a safe space.

Activity

I will be using a card sorting activity adapted from a workshop given by Kimberly Tanner from SEPAL at San Francisco State University.

Step 1: Personal Reflection

First I will ask students to think about how they would react to the following people if they were working alone late at a convenience store in their neighborhood. Students will not be asked to share their answers (or write them down), rather they will be asked to react and note their reactions mentally. My goal here is to begin the dialog about stereotyping and profiling in a non-judgmental way. As humans, we tend to categorize people by attributes, language, "otherness", and "likeness". Often these categories are based on values, perceptions, experience, and beliefs developed through personal experiences, our families, and our communities. These then create the patterns of perception, attitudes, and beliefs that are the basis of culture.

• A white professional middle aged woman with a dark complexioned young child
• A group of teenage boys of mixed race dressed in sports uniforms
• A group of black teenage girls dressed in hoodies
• A white middle aged policeman
• A dark complexioned man accompanied by a dark complexioned woman with a scarf
• A homeless man in his 40's 
• A homeless woman with an accent in her 70's
• A man with dreadlocks (complexion non-descript) dressed in casual clothes
• A group of East Asian men with no English dressed in business suits
• Two latina women, in 20's and 40's. The younger speaks English, the elder does not.
• An ungroomed older man (60's) in a wheelchair with a younger care giver bi-racial man with dreadlocks.
• A group of teenage boys with tattoos and body piercings.
• A bald white middle aged man dressed in camouflage with a Ron Paul button.
• A middle aged woman wearing a sari with a cough.
• A group of teenage boys with body piercings and British accents.

Step 2

Now I will break students up into groups. Some groups will be random, some will have commonalities (i.e. downstaters, foreign students, gender, major, language groups). I will then will give students cards with each of the groups listed above, one per card and ask them to sort the cards. The only directions will be there has to be at least 2 cards in each category and there has to be at least 2 categories. Students will be responsible for naming the categories into which they have sorted the cards. According to Dr. Tanner, categories tend to be superficial or based on simplistic visual cues for students that do not have a deep understanding of a topic. I expect that my students will sort according to physical attributes (age, race, fashion) or other easily recognizable attributes such as ability or accent. A more advanced student of intercultural communication might use other attributes (e.g. matriarchal, patriarchal, level of menace, distance from personal culture, approach in communication).

Results

I was pleasantly surprised at the sophistication of categories my students created. One possibility could be the fact that my class is very diverse so when they were put randomly into groups (by counting off in class), there were different levels of expertise within the discussions. As a result, the discussion became more complex. Some of the categories included: in-group, outgroup, strangers (communication rings) and lifestyles (i.e. caregivers, no social ties, members of groups). The word "stereotypes" and "profiling" did come up in class and we agreed to put it aside to later class (I plan on using it in the socio-linguistics class planned in a couple of weeks as the term has become packed with social meaning due to its use in the media).

I look forward to some great discussions in my class although I am still a bit nervous about opening up what might be difficult conversations in the class. I will update this post with changes to the process based on the results from my class. I will also be replicating this activity the last class to see if student understanding changes over the course of the semester.

Global voices

I am always interested in looking at the perspective of those outside of the US. I happened upon a clip of Ethan Zuckerman's presentation at TED, a series of speeches of important ideas. I rarely embed speeches because it slows down my readers downloading time. However, this was a really fascinating speech on the role of social media, breaking down the cultural uses.


In the presentation, he confirms some of the principles I have written about earlier in terms of culture and technology, namely that it is not the tools used, but how they are used. He uses graphics that demonstrate the depth of internet use; not just accessibility, but also HOW technology is being used and for what topics. As he says, "many places can GET media, it is just an enormous amount of work to do so." He advocates rewiring the system we have, going outside of the "flocks" (or what I would call discourse communities) to find new ideas and connections.

Zuckerman is one of the cofounders of Global Voices. This site creates these new pathways by finding media and blogs from around the world, translating them, and making them available for anyone interested in knowing what others in other parts of the world are discussing. Each area has translators and "curators" who who choose articles, blogs, and internet media that represent the issues of a certain region. The translators are listed on the blog, so anyone can see what their background (and bias) might be. This is going to be one of my new favorite sites, I think, as I will be able to get a perspective outside of the US on global issues.

Culture and Technology

This post is as much a work in progress to help me understand some of what I am seeing in my dissertation. So I apologize for the lack of specific references at this point. I am hoping to find some to support some of the ideas I have uncovered.

Defining Culture and Technology

There has been a lot written over the last 2 decades on the impact of culture on technology and the impact of technology on culture. Betty Collis and Catherine McLoughlin have written extensively on this issue. Rather than reiterate what they have written, I would like to look at a framework for further research in culture and technology.

To begin with, the interaction of culture and technology often looks at the influence of one on the other. However, I feel that culture is the unseen basis of technology. Technology can be a process, a tool, and/or the use of a tool or process. As a result, knowledge is at the basis of what technology is. Epistemology (the belief of what knowledge is) is grounded in our cultures. This becomes evident when someone changes cultures or is introduced to a culture other than the one in which they grew up.

For example, when children first go to school, suddenly they are aware that there are differences between what the school believes is knowledge, what their classmates believe is knowledge, and what their families believe is knowledge (thus, I was told I "didn't know how to write my name" when I began school because it was not my given name I had learned--Virginia--but rather my nickname--Gin).

So our understanding of what a technology is and how it can be used may change if there is a cultural challenge to our understanding of that technology. At that point, we can either adapt the technology, change the technology we are using, or require that others use our technology.

Considerations for culture and technology research

In my current research, I have seen how organizational, departmental, personal, or professional cultures influence the understanding, use, and acceptance of technology for a given situation. In this section I will identify some of the factors that influence the impact of culture on and by technology.

1) Affordances: An affordance is the use of a technology for a given situation. It is the ability for a process, tool, or use of the process or tool to allow us to accomplish something. Many times, what we look for in an affordance for a specific situation is based on how that technology has been used in the past and what we understand its capabilities are. If the technology does not allow us to accomplish what we used it for, then we either did not use it correctly or the technology does not work. Rarely to we look at whether our expectations in the use of the technology differed from others expectations.

For example, my sister currently lives in the Midwest and has embraced a midwestern, protestant, rural culture. However, her New York, small town, Catholic culture in which she was raised comes out when she uses technology. Unlike her husband (who was raised in the culture where she lives), she wants to be able to individualize the technology she uses and expects to work with ITS personnel to help her to modify the technology or be given new tools when she finds the technology lacking. A case in point was her use of a LMS that she did not feel met the needs for her class. Her colleagues just adapted what they were given to their own teaching, while my sister demanded that the ITS look for modifications in order for her to accomplish the learning and communication goals she had set up for her class. She expected better affordances to monitor student progress, for students to be able to interact with content, and for better teacher student communication outside of the class.

2) Design: The spacial relationship with processes, tools, and the uses of those tools and processes differ depending on the cultural epistemology and context. In high context cultures, I feel there will be less variety in the understanding and expectations for a given technology (within that culture) whereas in a low context culture, there will be more variety. In addition, many western cultures will use a linear relationship within the technology while eastern cultures may be more apt to use a spatial relationship with the technology. There will also be differences in the relationship in the human/technology interaction and the human/technology/human interaction. This makes sense given the differences between cultures in the way they organize information, communicate ideas, and validate knowledge.

3)Visual and language differences How a tool looks, how a process is communicated, the terms and symbols that are integrated into technology will differ between cultures because these are all at the heart of culture differences. For example, many Asian languages read from right to left and their writing is based on symbols for ideas rather than phonetic symbols. Many cultures value oral traditions over written, written over visual, or equally value oral, visual, and written traditions. As a result, different technologies might be valued differently within one culture than another culture.


Future research

I feel it is important that we begin to look at the culture that is embedded in technology in order to understand how people decide what technologies to use and how to use them. This would also help us to identify what factors we need to consider when choosing appropriate technology for use with or in other cultures and the impact that that technology would have on its implementation and on the use by the culture.

Sports and culture: the case of the World Cup

Yesterday, my son watched the England vs. USA soccer world cup game. As I am sure there was a different vibe in England, this was actually well watched by many of my son's friends...even those that don't play soccer.

Throughout the game, my son was texting one of his best friends from grade school. "What are they thinking??" (The US). "They should be playing the Latin American game. They can't beat the Brits playing a European game.""Where are the middies?."

At the same time, I heard the commentators, "He's doing what a striker should do." "The D needs to mark his man. That's why they made that goal."

So I asked my son, "Do you think they use the same terminology to describe the game as they do in the US?"

His answer was that he once had watched one of the British league games on line and didn't understand a single thing the commentators were saying.

So this tells me a few things about the cultural differences in sports:

1. There are cultural differences in strategies.  HOW a country plays the game depends on the cultural values they have on winning, "fair play", the team, individual team member responsibilities,  and the role of the sport in that country.
2. Even in the same language, different terminology develops which reflects the region and country's values.  Sports terminology is one of the most culturally ingrained specialty language.  Study the sports terminology and its philology and you'll get a good idea of the culture's values.
3. Sports has always been perceived as a uniting activity.  However, it can also be a dividing activity.
4. Look to other cultures and their strategies to improve your own play and understanding of the sport.  This could then be used to advantage in other parts of your life (i.e. business, education).

Finally, a heartfelt thanks goes out to Andy Cloverdale for posting the link to the World Cup interactive calendar.  We've bookmarked it on delicious and access it daily as this is not a high priority for American Sports (although the US vs. England game was shown on US network TV).

Understanding a culture through its sports

Over the last few months I have justified my children's participation in sports as a good introduction to office politics. There are days when I just want to stop the fight. But then I think they will be better prepared for the real world if they learn how to handle the social relationships, politics, and yes, down right unfairness of organized sports.

A few months ago, Karyn Romeis wrote about her son's participation in athletics in Britain. Having "foreign" parents (South Africa and Sweden), her son was labeled by his classmates as being "too competitive." This reminded me of a documentary I had seen on Japanese baseball and doing business in Japan. In Japan, a professional baseball team will not have a "blowout" of a game in which they beat an opponant by a large amount. Likewise, the purpose of a business is not to put their competition out of business, but to do better than them. Karyn mentioned that secondary sports teams will play for the "game", not necessarily to win. To which her son asked, "Then why play?" I think the same is true for many in the US. I have always had the philosophy that a team is only as strong as their weakest player, so it is important that the team supports the weakest player. But in the US, most teams cut or do not play the weakest player (they are simply a spare, just in case). As a result, team members, while they are supposed to act like a team, will do anything not to be perceived as the weakest player.

So how does this play out in business? Many businesses have "teams" that in fact will look at the individual effort. Team members will want to be on teams where the other members will make them look good. In some cases, the team member is just a "spare". I am sure many have been on those teams where a worker can't be fired, but needs some "work." Usually what happens is they are given the job the least likely to effect the team adversely if it is done poorly. The team "leader" is the star of the team whether it is warrented or not. However, just like in sports, if the final outcome is negative, the "star" takes the heat for it.

My own philosophy of team work, I think was greatly influenced by my own work in Costa Rica. In work, we often worked in teams (I was an English teacher for business professionals). It was important to coordinate lessons and to ensure that the weakest teacher was given help in preparing lessons so the rest of the instruction would be at an appropriate level. Sometimes this meant taking up the slack in another class; sometimes it meant helping the teacher to prepare; other times it meant just giving a team member moral support and encouragement. It is interesting to see a Latin American soccer game as this team work is evident in the way the game is played. Those that appear the weakest become the strongest given different conditions.

What does this all mean? I think anyone working with international groups should use sports to analyze how a team will work. Not only is this a good team building activity, it is also a good way to develop team communication skills, processes, and identify team roles and how team members will work together.

Defining diversity

Karyn Romeis had an interesting post on a "diversity" screening questionnaire she had to take before she would qualify to bid on a job. The problem was that she is a one-person show without any plans of hiring in the future. As a result, she didn't fit the "minority" profile or "diversity" policy need to bid on the job.

This reminded me of my favorite activity I use in all of my classes--the diversity interview. The assignment in in several parts as follows:

. Step I:

Imagine that you want to find a pen pal on the internet. Write a description of yourself in 30 words or less in the space below:

Step II

Locate someone outside of the class to interview that does not match the characteristics you used to describe yourself in step I.

Before interviewing them, reflect on the following questions:

What is your culture? Which groups do you identify with? How does that affect your communication? How does this affect who you speak to and how?
What assumptions do you make about the other person’s culture?
What assumptions do you make about the other person based on their culture?

Step III

Find out the following information in your interview:

What are the perceived similarities between the two cultures?
What are the perceived differences?
How can you tell the difference between a personal belief and a group’s belief?
What is the best way to find out about the culture?
What is the most unfamiliar part of your culture to the person being interviewed? (What do they have trouble understanding about your culture?)
What is the best part of your culture according to the person being interviewed? Why?
Can they give an example of conflict between your culture and their culture? How do they handle that situation?

Step IV

After you have interviewed this person, I want you to reflect on the following questions:

How did your assumptions affect your interview?
Were you able to learn anything new about that person?
What (if anything) surprised you about their answers?

Defining Diversity

In the US (and it appears this might be the case in other countries based on Karyn's post), we define "diversity" as race and gender. I refuse to fill out the little tick boxes about my race and gender that I am asked to fill out when I apply for a job.

What I have found that most of my students identify as their "culture" (which differs from many European and Latin American countries) is based on religion, sexual orientation, generation (age group), socio-economic group (middle class, professional, upper middle class, working class) or ethnic group (i.e. Italian American, Irish American, Latino/a). I found it odd that "white" students were more apt to state their race. In addition to these factors, in our state, location was important. In New York state, there is a definite distinction between the downstate, Long Island, upstate, and Central/western New York cultures. This is played out at the state universities as a large percentage of the upstate colleges are attended by "downstaters".

Also, the campus has a large population of Jews, Muslims, as well as Catholics, East Orthodox, and various christian religions. Sometimes these religious differences do erupt in classes; more so than racial differences. Another source of conflict are differences in urban, suburban, and rural cultures. This is often manifested in divisions between "resident" and "commuter" students. Finally, at the graduate level, there is a divide between international students and "local" students, especially in competition for assistantships.

Many of my students have not looked past the labels used to identify diversity. Often when they report on their interviews, they are surprised to know things about others that they thought they had known already. The most valuable lesson the students identify is not to make assumptions about someone because they are a)known in a social circumstance, b) have similar backgrounds so it is assumed they have similar values or have different backgrounds so it is assumed they will have different values, and 3) it is important to talk to people and ask about their values and beliefs. Not only is this an interesting assignment for me to grade, but many have indicated it is their favorite assignment to conduct.

While a visiting professor at another college, I pushed for the definition of diversity to be expanded. Even though the school was able to recruit faculty of color or those that fell into the traditional categories of race and gender, most had the same philosophy within the departments and were trained at the same 2-3 schools. This led to a myopic or dogmatic approach within each of the departments, making it difficult for others with opposing views to succeed. The expansion of the definition made it possible to recruit those that may have had provocative research or research and teaching that would address the issues for underrepresented populations. The student population began to change as the new professors, regardless of race or gender, gave a broader view that supported many groups.

New type of communication with facebook?

One thing I have been interested in the last few years is how people set up their computers. To me, it is like setting up a kitchen. Each person has their own habits and how to set things up. When I go to my mother's house, I can't find anything as she organizes things in a completely different way than I do.

I find the same thing with computers. My kids will go in and change something on the computer and both my husband and I will be lost for days looking for it!

Today, I looked over the shoulder of my son as he went through his facebook account. I can access his "wall", but I only get one side of the conversation. In order to get the other side, I will need to be friends with those that uploaded onto the wall. As many in his network are included in his friend's network, he can see their postings. It was interesting to see him follow the conversations by going back and forth. But the conversations were not the usual linear, monocronic conversations found on IM's or even in discussion forums. Rather, facebook allows for members to "listen in" on written conversations, follow the threads that they want to follow, and, if they are all part of the same group, to have an idea of what is going on between group members.

At any time, however, a group member can be "kicked out" by taking him or her off the friend's list. However, they can still be part of the group perrifially, as long as someone in the group maintains him or her as a friend. This has been my role to date. While I can read what is going on in the group through the eyes of my son, this is only a one sided conversation. There are many assumptions I need to make to really understand what is going on.

I see this as an emerging new method of communication in which the rules are still evolving. It will be interesting to see where it goes. I would be interested in knowing if there is a different style of facebook, how it's used, how it's set up, what happens in the the network, what happens around the fringe of the network, for different languages.

Lessons Learned in Working with International Virtual Groups

Christine Martel's blog last week journaled about her participation in a course on culture, technology, and communication. Each day, as she worked in cross-cultural groups, she gave her insights into working with an international group in a virtual environment. Many of her insights mirrored my students as they worked in on international projects in France, Peru, and Italy. I promised her I would give some of those insights after she completed the course (I am sure her instructors gave her the project so the class could experience the difficulties first hand).

So here are some of the most common "lessons learned" my students have come up with in the past:

1. Don't assume anything
2. Outline the communication and work process at the beginning, including ways to communicate, communication contact information and back-up information (in case of problems with primary contacts, another person that can track down what is happening), expectations of quality and quantity of work, and a tentative schedule.
   
3. Build in sufficient time into the schedule. There should be regularly scheduled updates and work should be divided up and planned in pieces, with early milestones given priority over other work.
4. There should be multiple channels of communication which allows for regular updates. If one system or process does not work, groups should be flexible enough to change it so it does work.
5. Analyze "silence" to make sure that everyone understands what is going on. What is causing the "silence": cultural differences? technology problems? problems with the group (dynamics)? Other problems that can't be seen?
6. When setting up a virtual group consider: time differences (time zones, including the change from summer to winter time), seasonal differences (there are different business systems for those in summer time and winter time--vacations, whether related work delays---between those in the northern and southern hemisphere. Those around the equator have differences between the dry and wet seasons), holidays, work schedules (how long the work day is, time for lunches, days of the week), access to technology (types of technology, training, accessible power sources--some countries turn off power in the night or early morning, others might have unannounced blackouts on a regular basis), and communication structures (gatekeepers to authority, organizational structure, language ability).
7. Have patience. Plan that things will go wrong and develop a plan of how to troubleshoot when that happens. This is especially important for language and cultural misunderstandings.
8. Be sensitive to differences in culture, values, concept of time, office relationships, and language. Ask, don't tell. Realize that others in the team are trying to figure you out as much as you are trying to figure them out, so be explicit and explain EVERYTHING. Don't be insulted about ANY questions that might be posed to you and don't assume that any question is dumb as long as the intent is to make the group work more efficiently. Put yourself in the others situation.
   

I have been doing international projects on and off for over 20 years now, and still these same issues come up. You will notice that Christine came up with almost the same issues. While I am very committed to international communication and business, I also feel I am successful if some of my students conclude that they just are not suited to international work. Often my students come into my courses either anticipating that they will be able to jet set around the world if they work in international business or they will be able to save the world with the "American way". By the end of my courses they have a much more realistic idea of the frustrations, challenges, and exciting new opportunities that working in a global context presents.

I feel that these are experiences that all new workers in the US should be exposed to. As the world economy shifts to Asia, Americans need to start recognizing that English may not stay the world language of business, and at the very least, more and more decisions and groups may have members outside of the US.

The Importance of Culture

One area that has been missing in the discussion of Work Literacy is the ability to adapt to different cultures.

Defining Culture
I feel it is important to begin by defining what I mean by culture. In the US, we tend to use a narrow definition of culture as something that is: a) foreign (different than our own US culture), b) uniform (everyone within a culture thinks the same and a person belongs to "a" culture), and c) identified through rituals and artifacts (rather than differences in values and beliefs, communication styles, or ways of thinking).

I use a much broader definition. I believe: a) a person can belong to and move through multiple cultures depending on the circumstance, b) is defined fundamentally by shared values and beliefs, c) can be manifested in multiple ways within the same culture including different ways of communicating, thinking, dress, behavior, etc..., d) is difficult to identify members for those outside the culture, e) is a complex system difficult to categorize with members not even able to articulate.

Given this definition, an individual might have simultaneous cultural forces affecting him or her in any given situation.

How does this affect work literacy?
We often make assumptions about work, processes, information, other people, based on our cultures. As a result, when working with new people, in a new situation, on new tasks, our preferences and assumptions will affect how we work, what information we feel is relevant, and the way we interact.

I find that I am able to change with the culture in which I am immersed, while still able to maintain my core self. This ability to move in and out of cultures requires me to identify the values of the culture within which I am working (e.g. working within a conservative business culture such as banking and insurance will be different than working in a creative business environment such as marketing or a Non-profit arts organization). I then need to know how to adopt my own values and preferences to the new culture. This does not mean compromising my own values, but rather understanding the values in which I am working (or living) and dealing with them so I don't lose myself or insult those within the new culture. It also requires good observation, negotiation, listening, and questioning/interviewing skills.

I am hoping as I delve deeper into my dissertation, that I will be able to dissect what skills allow some to move in and out of cultures yet paralyze others from working within a different culture.