The quote I’ve been considering all weekend:
“The intercultural learner moves amongst cultures, in a process of continual negotiation, learning to cope with the inevitable changes, in a manner that is ultimately empowering and enriching. The home culture is never denied nor demeaned, yet the intercultural learner will find his or her attitudes and beliefs challenged by contact with others and the process of interaction will lead to the kind of personal growth characterized by ‘progressive’ curricula.” (J. Corbett 2003)
Corbett writes this within the context of explaining good intercultural education, which he describes as neohumanist, for it “places respect for individuals and their many cultures at the heart of its enterprise”.
Thoughts?
9. February 2009 at 5:13 pm
“…find his or her attitudes and beliefs challenged by contact with others…”
This is really funny. Just last night I was chatting with an American friend who still lives in Korea. I was telling her that I don't really have any friends in this area. Before I went to Korea I don't think I would've thought that. But Koreans tend to have adjective friends. “This is my seonbae,” “this is my hubae,” “this is my work friend,” “this is my military friend…” I think I've sort of taken that on. I have my “friend since sixth grade friend” and my “taekwondo friends,” and…
I'm not sure when my mind made a mental switch, but it seems to have done so.
11. February 2009 at 12:43 am
There is a great book, “Flexible Citizenship” by Aihwa Ong, that talks about “the cultural logistics of transnationality,” I read it years ago, but it not in the same ways echoed the transnational learner who moves amongst cultures, but particularly attributing that skills to non-native americans in business-because for so many years people outside the US had to be successful at this because the US$ was the unversal language of business (is it stll–oh, that's a different blog!) and so people of other (non-US) cultures had to have that ability to flow and adapt between cultures to be able to pursue business.
The only other thing I would say is to temper all of this by time–you learn, but you change as you grow, and need to continually learn–In that sense intercultural learner is a good choice of words (as opposed to something like intercultural competence) it's a process, not a static body of knowledge. That does seem to be implied by Corbett's definition.
Cheers.
Deanna
13. February 2009 at 3:25 pm
With Aditya (I have no idea if this is true of all Indians…) friends seem to come in two type: the “adjective friend”, as you describe above, and then the extremely close friend who remains close no matter how often they communicate. He has a couple of the latter, and I truly envy the easy relationship he has with them.
13. February 2009 at 4:02 pm
Thanks for the book rec – I'll be checking it out.