Digital learning across cultures: an account of activity theory

ABSTRACT

This paper explores a teaching and learning process as it unfolds in an online offshore classroom. The paper reports on teaching and learning narratives distilled from different cultures, namely the cultures of educators and students in the context of digital learning environments. Drawing on activity theory as a conceptual framework to analyse the narrative, we employ self-study as a methodological tool for capturing the dynamism and complexities that unravel in intercultural and technology-enabled teaching activities. The framework explores the relationships, tensions and opportunities of diverse activity elements that constitute the design and delivery of digital pedagogies. In the networked intercultural system, sustaining the position of activity elements and the specific relational circuit that they institutionalise is a key task for understanding digital technologies as an influential tool for effective learning and teaching practices. We argue that seeing the digital platform from the perspective of its role in creating dynamic interrelationships in a complex activity system is one way to move beyond the cultural confines of any particular element in the system.     

Evaluationsstudien zu interkulturellen (Gruppen-)Trainingsprogrammen

Standard-Trainings for professionals are involved and evaluated in university teaching and learning: all participants reached a high competence-level of intercultural knowledge and behaviour. For the future and to optimize intercultural teaching and learning at the university, blended-learning-models are planned.     

Intercultural teaching competence: a multi-disciplinary model for instructor reflection

Abstract

This article presents a model for Intercultural Teaching Competence (ITC) that instructors may use as a tool for reflection as they prepare to facilitate learning across cultures. Building on previous research on intercultural competence, culturally relevant teaching, intercultural trainer competencies, and student-centred approaches to teaching, the model identifies concrete facilitation techniques for instructors who would like to further develop their own teaching practice or mentor colleagues in effective teaching across cultures. The model consists of 20 instructor competencies grouped into three categories: foundational skills, facilitation skills, and curriculum development skills for intercultural learning. While intended as a tool to guide instructors in individual and group reflection on inclusive teaching practices, the ITC model may also be used by educational developers to guide feedback during classroom observations or while supporting curriculum internationalisation initiatives. Recommendations for use in faculty learning communities and workshops are included at the end of the article. The ITC model will benefit instructors in a variety of disciplines who teach in diverse and multidisciplinary classrooms, discuss global or social justice issues in their class, and those who seek to include intercultural and Indigenous perspectives in their curriculum.     

The role of the school library: reflections from Sweden

Libraries are critical learning spaces and may play a significant role in intercultural education initiatives, particularly in Sweden where the national curriculum ascribes central functions to libraries for learning activities. Unfortunately, the ways in which teachers and librarians may collaborate to leverage mutual resources is not fully understood. This article uses Pirjo Lahdenperä’s model of intercultural education development to consider the case of a small school library in a highly diverse urban neighbourhood. Although public libraries in Scandinavia can support intercultural educational values by addressing individual needs and complementing curriculum-based teaching, the development of new teaching practices requires additional guidance as well as institutional support.     

European Perspectives on Intercultural Communication

Some of the major aspects of intercultural communication in Italy in particular, and in Europe in general, are summarised in this paper. In the wake of developments in favour of political and social minority rights in the United States, voluntary movements in Europe arose in the 1970s and became stronger in the 1990s. Among their many activities, volunteers working to further intercultural education have taken on the role of multipliers, spreading the application of intercultural learning. They have served alternately as trainers of young people and students of experts, functioning as hinges between teaching and learning. In many European countries, intercultural education in schools is still left to volunteer initiatives. The peculiarity of intercultural communication lies in its pragmatic approach to reality. It is based on a few abstract general truths, such as the fact that all humans have a culture, value orientation, etc. allowing them to understand and interpret an endless amount of practical experiences. Here, we shall present an anthropological approach to intercultural relations, considering various issues, such as the differences between cultural and national identities, the development of ethnocentrism as a response to perceived foreign threats, and the differences between assimilation, inclusion and integration. The focus on the Mediterranean region provides an example of the intercultural communication that takes place among many western and eastern cultures.     

Teaching Sociology in Community College: Balancing Ideals with Institutional Constraints

Many professionals experience conflict between personal ideals about the meaning and importance of their work, and the structural limitations of the workplace. This conflict presents professionals with the challenge of how to hold true to their ideals within a non-supportive or even hostile environment. In this paper, I describe my experiences balancing my ideals about teaching, learning, and the purpose of a college education with the institutional constraints of a community college. There are three main sections in this paper. First is a discussion of the reasons I chose a career in community college teaching. The second section focuses on the institutional constraints I have encountered over the first 5 years of my career. In the third section, I explain how I have attempted to balance my ideals with the structural limitations of the college where I teach. Throughout the paper, I blend personal narrative with the relevant literature. In doing so, I intend to use my personal experience as a lens for discussing the challenges and possibilities that characterize community college teaching in general.     

On reflection: is reflexivity necessarily beneficial in intercultural education? 1

This article explores how the concept of reflexivity is used in intercultural education. Reflexivity is often presented as a key learning goal in acquiring intercultural competence (ICC). Yet, reflexivity can be defined in different ways, and take different forms across time and space, depending on the concepts of selfhood that prevail and how notions of difference are constructed. First, I discuss how the dominant usages of reflexivity in intercultural education reflect and reproduce a Cartesian view of the self that shapes how ICC is conceptualized and taught. I discuss three assumptions that this view produces: that the self is accessible and transcendable, that reflexivity is universal across space and time, and that the self can act as its own remedial change agent or ‘inner consultant.’ I argue that because reflexivity is understood in many different ways, attention to definition is crucial, both in designing learning objectives in intercultural education and in devising ways to attain them. Greater attention is also needed in intercultural education to the ways in which selfhood, and hence also reflexivity and constructions of difference, differ across space and time.     

From non-cultural to intercultural principles: a proposal for English classes in Brazilian public schools

This article focuses on English language teaching in Brazilian public schools, based on experiences in primary and secondary education, as well as in Teaching Practicum courses at a university. Through these experiences, the article critiques the overemphasis on grammar and the lack of an intercultural approach. The author engages the reader with a theoretical discussion regarding the connection between language and culture and the possibilities for the implementation of intercultural principles. The article closes with some reflections on what intercultural language learning looks like in practice.     

TEACHING IN LITHUANIA—THE PERSONAL AND THE PROFESSIONAL

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the central role of the countertransference as a catalyst for understanding for both teacher and student. During a week of teaching basic psychoanalytic concepts to Lithuanian university students in central Lithuania, I discovered that there was an absence or lack of understanding between the group I was teaching and myself. Our expectations were very different. On a political, cultural level, I was faced with a Lithuanian understanding of the world that is quite different from a Western European perspective. This personal narrative explores how I used my countertransference to the group, and their countertransference to their clinical work, as a tool to begin to explore the professional issues we have in common and to struggle to understand the differences. It was impressive to observe, through the lived experience of this work, the development of a well‐functioning group that had overcome not only the difficulties that accompany large groups but that had taken on board a new way of thinking and working. I returned in October 2004 for a further week's teaching and a continuation of a joint teaching–learning enterprise.     

Developing the critical intercultural class-space: theoretical implications and pragmatic applications of critical intercultural communication pedagogy

Teaching intercultural communication presents pedagogical challenges due to the breadth and depth of the discipline and its recent critical turn. Teaching it with a social justice mission, and guiding students to understand critical and postcolonial approaches to its practice, requires complex and multifaceted approaches so as not to oppress or misrepresent marginalised populations. This essay addresses critical intercultural communication pedagogy as a shared system of knowledge among teachers and students, all participants in the cyclical process of learning. Critical intercultural communication pedagogy is presented from a Freirean perspective, as shared ownership of knowledge, including didactic, experiential and reflexive approaches to learning, with educational outcomes that include empathy, connection and ethical responsibilities towards social justice globally and locally. First, several definitions and theoretical perspectives are traced. Next, three short case studies of critical intercultural communication pedagogy (CICP) present varying approaches to teaching critical intercultural issues across diverse populations. Each of the studies is analysed for how the application of different CICP and cosmopolitan pedagogical activities impacts educational outcomes and processes for intercultural students. Finally, several recommendations are given for future scholarship, along with a concluding remark that describes the work’s contribution to critical intercultural communication pedagogy and to the discipline as a whole.     

The foreign language and intercultural competence teacher: the acquisition of a new professional identity

It has now become commonplace to state that foreign language learning should be viewed in an intercultural perspective. The main objective of foreign language education is no longer defined strictly in terms of the acquisition of communicative competence. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural communicative competence. The aim of the study reported on here was to investigate to what extent and in what way teachers' current professional profiles meet the specifications formulated in the theoretical literature regarding the ‘foreign language and intercultural competence teacher’. To answer this question, an international research design was developed, involving teachers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Our findings suggest that teachers' current foreign language‐and‐culture teaching profiles do not yet meet those of the envisaged ‘foreign language and intercultural competence teacher’, and that patterns in teacher thinking and teaching practice appear to exist within and across the participating countries.     

Deliberations on the development of an intercultural competence curriculum

Committed to developing an institution-wide intercultural competence curriculum for master’s-level students preparing for international careers, a team of nine professors from across disciplines deliberated for a year on their fundamental understandings of intercultural competence and what it would mean to facilitate the development of that competence in students. This article recounts the team’s philosophical debates related to intercultural competence: definitions, effective methods of teaching, intersectionality of identities, Western bias in the literature, power and inequity, and the role of language learning. The deliberations became the foundation for an institution-wide curriculum, focused on helping graduates to be not only effective workers and managers in multicultural settings, but also to be leaders in social change. This article shares the conversations and considerations of the planning process and the breadth and emphasis of the curriculum that emerged. Reflections on students’ learning and recommendations for curriculum developers are offered.     

Interkulturelles Training

With proceeding internationalization and globalization of society the demands of working life have changed in the last decades. To meet these demands executives and professionals cooperating with foreign partners abroad or in Germany need the central key qualification of intercultural competence. This important key qualification does not evolve automatically from intercultural experiences, but has to be acquired during an extensive learning process, which is mainly organized in intercultural trainings. This text first describes what intercultural competence is and how it is developed. Based on scientific findings on developmental stages of intercultural competence central aspects of intercultural trainings are covered in detail. Objectives and methods of various intercultural training formats are outlined to illustrate the conceptualization and outcomes of learning effective trainings. The text concludes with future developments of intercultural training in the light of expatriates facing increasing demands regarding the quality of their work. Trainee groups will become more culturally heterogeneous, more trainings will be needed that moderate acculturation processes while staying abroad, training contents and methods have to be adapted according to local customs, modern information technology will play a major role, and family members coming along have to be involved in the training process.     

Interactions among future study abroad students: exploring potential intercultural learning sequences

The study presented in this article aims to explore if and how intercultural learning may take place in students’ class interaction. It is grounded in the assumption that interculturality is not a clear-cut feature inherent to interactions occurring when individuals with presumed different linguistic and cultural/national backgrounds talk to each other, but that interculturality is co-constructed during interaction. In other words, every ‘interdiscourse interaction’ is potentially intercultural. We have assumed this perspective while investigating student–student class interactions that took place in an intercultural education course aimed at enhancing students’ intercultural learning in view of their sojourn abroad. Interactional data were analysed from the perspective of conversation analysis. Then, drawing on the notion of séquence potentiellement acquisitionelle as well as on a constructivist approach to intercultural learning, we conclude that, in interaction with their peers, learners can co-construct ‘potential intercultural learning sequences’ (PILS), which present recognisable interactional and discursive features.     

Intercultural competencies: what students in study and placement mobility should be learning

When promoting intercultural learning in the context of study and placement mobility, intercultural educators are specifying what students should be learning. Research not only confirms the genuine impact of real-life intercultural contact on intercultural learning, but also shows how this impact can be enhanced through institutional support and the integration of intercultural learning into the curriculum. In this position paper, we propose a number of considerations that need to be taken into account in setting learning objectives for mobile students. Referring to research and policy documents mostly in relation to the European mobility context, we address consecutively what students are learning in study and placement mobility; what they say they want to learn; what they should learn for; and finally, what they should be learning. We conclude that intercultural educators should pay heed to what students are actually learning in study and placement mobility over a time span that transcends the current sojourn abroad. We also recommend that educators take steps to support students in mobilising the intercultural skills they acquired abroad for increased employability.     

Intercultural teaching in higher education

In this paper I examine the difference between a multicultural curriculum and an intercultural one. I argue that such a distinction is important because it helps teachers in universities and colleges to move beyond the canon debate and its politics, and focus on the more fundamental task of fostering intercultural thinking. I assert here that interculturalism in teaching is not about covering multiple cultures; rather it is about working through a dialogue between cultures. A dialogue, of course, requires minimally a party of two. Once that requirement is satisfied, in my view the focus should then be on the dialogue itself rather than on the multiplicity of voices for the sake of inclusivity.     

An analysis of internationalisation and intercultural outlook in Swedish teacher education

Foucault's discourse concept provides an instrument for the critical examination of internationalisation and, respectively, inter‐cultural education in Swedish teacher education. Three different discourses concerning internationalisation are treated in the article: solidarity with developing countries, immigrant knowledge, and integration within the EU. Attention is focused on the analysis of intercultural teaching upon those visions that governed implementation of the concept in teacher education, and on reality as it appears in evaluations of teacher education. The question is whether a dilemma exists for teacher education in realising the goals of intercultural education, or whether these goals merely act as teacher education's false banners? The article concludes with perspectives on the future of the development from immigrant knowledge to intercultural learning.