A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity

The development of Intercultural sensitivity demands attention to the subjective experience of the learner. The key to such sensitivity and related skills in Intercultural communication is the way in which learners construe cultural difference. This article suggests a continuum of stages of persona! growth that allows trainers to diagnose the level of sensitivity of individuals and groups and to sequence material according to a developmental plan. The developmental continuum moves from ethnocentrisrn to ethnorelativism. Earlier stages of the continuum define the parochial denial of difference, the evaluative defense against difference, and the universalist position of minimization of difference. Later stages define the acceptance of difference, adaptation to difference, and the integration of difference into one's world view. The stages of development are illustrated with typical statements and behaviors of learners that can be used to diagnose levels of sensitivity, and strategies to facilitate movement from each stage to the next are suggested. Special attention is given to questions of ethics and credibility that often arise in intercultural training situations.     

Microbial technology: Some social and intercultural implications in development

This contribution deals with the interrelationships of microbial technology, culture, and society especially since such technology is expected to contribute to national and global development in the coming decades. In harnessing the beneficial activities of microbes for national development, a number of factors, some social, others cultural, are encountered in either the acceptance or rejection of such technology by different peoples. Specific examples are cited, particularly with the development of technologies for the developing world in the food and energy sectors. Attention is also given to the role of women and to the use of resources that are acceptable to some communities and unacceptable to others due to prevailing sociocultural traits. Recognition of the different aids and barriers in development involves an understanding of the existing social and intercultural factors and their implications.     

Perceptions of social strategies in intercultural relations: The case of Ethiopian immigrants in Israel

Social strategies are a central component of intercultural competence, and are vital in understanding, theoretically and practically, the immigration and acculturation process. This study focused on an immigrant group experiencing identity threat, namely young Ethiopians in Israel, and examined their perceptions of social strategies in intergroup relations. Thematic analysis was performed on two types of qualitative data: (1) newspaper articles in which members of the Ethiopian community addressed aspects of their social strategies (31 reports collected from seven newspapers and magazines) and (2) data from two focus groups conducted afterwards with young adult members of the Ethiopian community (five to seven participants in each group). A major pattern emerging from the immigrants’ reports is the adoption of the hosts’ perspective and attitudes regarding the effective norms of social behavior. In their daily coping, on the other hand, the immigrant youth tended to exhibit a complex and at times ambivalent variety of behavioral patterns in their social interactions with members of the host culture. This spectrum of social strategies suggests dynamic processes of trial and error and reflects the unique complexity of intercultural competence. Findings were analyzed in terms of the immigrants’ perception of the threat to their identity and of their ways of coping with those threats.     

An investigation of ELT students’ intercultural communicative competence in relation to linguistic proficiency, overseas experience and formal instruction

This study aims at exploring how linguistic proficiency, target culture experience, and formal education are related to the learning of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). It presents the theoretical underpinnings of ICC in the light of recent literature. Then, it continues with the methodology section that includes a quantitative research study in which 35 students at the Department of English Language Teaching (ELT) at European University of Lefke (EUL) participated. The participants of the study had different linguistic proficiencies ranging from waystage or elementary level (A2) to vantage or upper intermediate level (B2). The paper concludes by stating the findings of the research and also by making some recommendations for language teachers to better develop the learners’ ICC in teaching English as a second language (TESL)/teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) contexts.