What does the term “learning community” mean in different cultures?

A very interesting question was posted to IHEC Blog's Facebook page yesterday that I think readers will find of interest and might want to add their thoughts.  Lori Jacobs asked followers to share their thoughts on the following question:  "What does the term 'learning community' mean in different cultures?"

I think it's a great question and one I had not thought about nor had an answer.  My exposure to learning communities is limited to the living learning communities some housing systems have implemented.  My wife has worked in undergraduate student housing for nearly 20 years and we lived in the residence halls/dorms for our first nine years of marriage and this is where I was able to observe these types of learning communities in action (as an outside observer).  I'm still trying to gather my thoughts on Lori's question.

What are your thoughts?  

Please visit IHEC Blog's Facebook page here to leave a comment!

Photo credit: HikingArtist.com

Why Premeds Should Study Abroad

I was searching through my research notes today during lunch and came across a quote that I copied and pasted from a SECUSS-L post (study abroad listsev) from the mid-1990’s that I’ve been referring to in my advising meetings with premed students on the value of studying/researching/working abroad. This is the type of quote that gets students to listen.

"Spending a year of study abroad is a life enriching, life changing experience. Those of us involved in medical school admissions can well appreciate the value of such experience. When we review an application to medical school, of course, we are interested in grades and MCAT scores. But we're also interested in clinical and researchexperience, as well as other kinds of experiences that impact on the applicant's maturity, leadership skills and sensitivities to people of differing backgrounds and cultures. Spending a year living and studying in another country and culture is truly a transforming and enriching experience. And since so few American students study abroad, only 2%, it would be a unique experience as well. Having a year of study abroad in one's background would be a very positive component of an application to medical school." Dr. Ralph Purdy, ChairMedical School Admissions CommitteeUniversity of California, IrvineOctober 24, 1996

To be sure, premed students shouldn’t study abroad just so they are more competitive in the medical school application process. It’s just a nice outcome of a transformative educational experience.

Update on Call for Proposals for Innovative Intercultural Training Activities

Just a quick update to IHEC Blog readers that the Call for Proposals for Innovative Intercultural Training Activities put out by Culturosity.com that I blogged about back in July has now extended the proposal deadline to December 1, 2009. Consider contributing to this great project!

The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence

I’m posting today about a forthcoming book that I’mvery excited to purchase and read. The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence is edited by Darla K. Deardorff and will be available in October 2009. I know many of the authors and have worked closely with some on various committees and I have presented with Darla (the editor) at several conferences the past few years.

Following is the Table of Contents that I copied from the SAGE webpage for the book:

Foreword by Derek Bok

PART I. CONCEPTUALIZING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
1. Conceptualizing Intercultural Competence by Brian Spitzberg, Gabrielle Changnon
2. The Identity Factor in Intercultural Competence by Young Yun Kim
3. The Interculturally Competent Leader by Margaret D. Pusch
4. The Moral Circle in Intercultural Competence: Trust Across Cultures by Gert Jan Hofstede
5. Intercultural Conflict Competence as a Facet of Intercultural Competence Development: Multiple Conceptual Approaches by Stella Ting-Toomey
6. Cultivating Intercultural Competence: A Process Perspective by Janet M. Bennett
7. Developing Globally Competent Citizens: The Contrasting Cases of the United States and Vietnam by Mark A. Ashwill, Duong Thi Hoang Oanh
8. Understanding Africans' Conceptualizations of Intercultural Competence by Peter Ogom Nwosu
9. An Associative Approach to Intercultural Communication Competence in the Arab World by R.S. Zaharna
10. A Chinese Model of Intercultural Leadership Competence by Guo-Ming Chen, Ran An
11. Intercultural Competence in German Discourse by Alois Moismueller, Michael Schonhuth
12. India: A Cross-Cultural Overview of Intercultural Competence by Ranjini Manian, Shobha Naidu
13. Interculturality versus Intercultural Competence in Latin America by Adriana Medina-López-Portillo & John Sinnigen

14. Synthesizing Conceptualizations of Intercultural Competence: A Summary of Emerging Themes by Darla K. Deardorff

PART II. APPLYING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE15. Passing It On: Intercultural Competence in the Training Arena by Craig Storti
16. Leading Global Projects: Bridging the Cultural and Functional-Divide by Robert T. Moran, William E. Youngdahl, Sarah V. Moran
17. Developing the Intercultural Competence of Educators and Their Students: Creating the Blueprints by Kenneth Cushner, Jennifer Mahon
18. The Intercultural Speaker and the Pedagogy of Foreign Language Education by Michael Bryam

19. Cultural Mentoring: International Education Professionals and the Development of Intercultural Competence by R. Michael Paige, Matthew L. Goode
20. Culturally Competent Practice in Social Work by Rowena Fong
21. Global Competence for Engineers by John M. Grandin, Norbert Hedderich
22. Neither Jew nor Gentile: Lessons About Intercultural Competence in Religious Organizations by George Yancey

23. Developing Skills for Interculturally Competent Care by Rohini Anand, Indra Lahiri

PART III. ASSESSMENT AND RESEARCH IN INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
24. Methodological Issues in Researching Intercultural Competence by Fons J. R. van de Vijver, Kwok Leung
25. Applying Theory and Research: The Evolution of Intercultural Competence in U.S. Study Abroad by Michael Vande Berg, R. Michael Paige
26. Research Application: Towards a General Framework of Competence for Today's Global Village by Fons Trompenaars, Peter Wooliams
27. Assessing Intercultural Competence: Issues and Tools by Alvino E. Fantini
28. Implementing Intercultural Competence Assessment by Darla K. Deardorff
29. The Real Cost of Intercultural Competence: An Epilogue by Joseph E. Trimble, Paul B. Pedersen, Eduardo S. Rodela

You can purchase The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence here.

Last week I posted to IHEC Blog about a call for proposals for a new project entitled "Innovative Approaches to Training and Talking about Culture" that Darla is working on with her colleague Kate Berardo from Culturosity.com. Check out that post here.

Call for Proposals - Innovative Approaches to Training and Talking about Culture

Culturosity.com has put out a call for proposals looking for the “latest and greatest idea for working with culture” in the form of training activities and creative alternatives for culture concepts. The project editors, Kate Berardo and Darla Deardorff, hope to turn the finished product into a published book. The submission deadline is September 1, 2009. You can learn more about this interesting project and submission procedures here.

UPDATE: The submission deadline has now been extended to December 1, 2009!

While I thought IHEC Blog readers would be very interested in submitting something for publicaiton consideration I also think you will enjoy much of the Culturosity.com site in general and I encourage you to check it out when you have the time.

Secretary Clinton's Reset Button Gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

I’ve been a fan of the AFS Intercultural Eyes blog for some time now and found Bettina Hansel’s[1] March 10th post on the cultural miscommunication between U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to be quite interesting. You can access Bettina’s post here.

[1] Bettina Hansel is AFS’s Director of Intercultural Education and Research and she created and maintains the AFS Intercultural Eyes blog.

Cross-Cultural Awareness in the U.S. Military

During the recent Forum on Education Abroad conference in Portland I was talking with my friend and colleague Bruce LaBrack about some his consulting projects which reminded me about a post I wanted to add to IHEC Blog.

I’m writing today about an article from insidehighered.com and a subsequent discussion on SECUSS-L (study abroad listserv) entitled Toward a ‘Cross-Culturally Competent’ Air Force”. I won’t summarize the article but will simply provide this link for those of you who haven’t read it yet.

Additionally, credit should be given to Joshua Burns who is a graduate student at S.I.T. Graduate Institute who forward a link to SECUSS-L for an excellent bibliography entitled Culture Awareness and the Military which you can access here.

Please refer to my previous post on Project Go – The ROTC Language & Culture Project here for another example of the military's effort to increase cross-cultural competence and understanding among it's ranks.

Chemistry as a Second Language: Chemical Education in a Globalized Society

In my day job I work as the Senior Adviser for International Initiatives in The College at The University of Chicago. One of my responsibilities is to serve as the liaison between the Dean of Students Office and the undergraduate program chair of the Chemistry and Biological Chemistry majors so I thought I’d post the call for papers for the 2009 autumn meeting of the American Chemical Society scheduled in Washington, DC on August 16-20, 2009. As this upcoming ACS autumn meeting will focus in part on international and cross-cultural issues faced in the field of Chemistry I thought this was a perfect blend of my international education and Chemistry/Biological Chemistry liaison responsibilities.

The following description of the meeting is taken from IIE.Interactive: February 23-27, 2009:

“Collaborations between scientists often transcend borders and cultural differences. The fundamental nature of science allows scientists to communicate using their knowledge of their field but the institutions that support them are often hindered by financial and cultural barriers. As a result, US students are often unaware of opportunities for chemistry study in countries other than the United States.

This symposium will discuss ways in which barriers to cross-cultural scientific exchange can be lowered. Papers on international exchange programs, classroom methods, and international experiences are invited. In particular, authors from organizations with a vested interest in chemists with a global perspective are encouraged to present.”

For more information visit www.acs.org. Paper submissions can be done here.

What’s Up with Culture?

Readers may find the website What’s Up with Culture? which is an online cultural training resource for study abroad to be quite interesting and helpful in your research and work. My friend and colleague, Bruce LaBrack, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at University of the Pacific is author and editor of the materials.



You can access What’s Up with Culture? Here: http://www.pacific.edu/sis/culture/

"CulturedMed"

I posted the following on the NAFSA Intercultural Communication & Training network discussion forum some time ago but think many readers of this Blog might find this of interest too. The website of "CulturedMed" < http://culturedmed.sunyit.edu/> was founded and developed by Jacquelyn Coughlan, Librarian at SUNY Institute of Technology in Utica, New York. I have copied and pasted the very detailed description of the site below:

Purpose of CulturedMed? "CulturedMed" at the Peter J.Cayan Library at SUNYIT is a web site and a resource center of print materials promoting culturally-competent health care for refugees and immigrants. This project provides support to the health care community and newcomers to our country by providing practical information regarding culture and health care from both viewpoints.

What's on this site? The bibliographies and links to relevant online resources found on the web site contain items that discuss health beliefs or ethnographic information about various ethnic groups. All entries are in English. In general, my interest is in the diverse health beliefs of various cultures, and the cross-cultural interactions between health care providers and patients. All of our assumptions are cultural. Since culture impacts everything we think and do, topical bibliographies such as the cultural aspects of food and nutrition, domestic violence and culture, and cultural aspects of death and dying are also included. Bibliographies may also contain items dealing with culture-bound syndromes, medical anthropology, and traditional or folk medicine. More bibliographies will be added as time permits. Currently there are about 9,000 citations. There are 110 other sites that link to us at CulturedMed. If you would like to see a list of who links to us, click here. The three bibliographies that were initially posted to the CulturedMed web site in 1998, were about the first refugee groups to settle in the Mohawk Valley in upstate New York since 1975: the Vietnamese, the Russians, and the Bosnians. The latest arrivals are from African countries that have experienced recent civil unrest such as the Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia. The Utica, New York area is home to 10,000 refugees. Additionally, there are about 5,000 non-English speaking Hispanics, mostly from Puerto Rico.

We are open to the public. Cayan Library at SUNYIT, houses a research center containing relevant print materials and is open to the public. However, not all materials listed on the web bibliographies are owned by the library. We are also certainly happy to share what we do own through the usual interlibrary loan system. See your local academic, medical, or public librarian for assistance.

Who am I? This web site was initiated and is updated periodically by Jacquelyn Coughlan, M.S., M.L.S., at the Cayan Library in Utica, NY. I am deeply committed to cross-cultural understanding between all people and believe this understanding is especially important in the arena of health care. I have co-taught classes in the School of Nursing at SUNYIT about Culturally Competent health care issues. Special thanks for the generous assistance of my colleague Ron Foster, M.L.S. Also many thanks for the hard work of Lisa Sarner, Zoe Sionnach, Jillaine Burnham, Rishi Mehta, Upasana Raina, Charu Swaroop, Danielle Seigers, Adam Clark and Ashley Inglis. Contact Information: Jacquelyn Coughlan Librarian, SUNYIT Cayan Library jackie@sunyit.edu phone: 315-792-7250 fax: 315 792-7517