The following is a guest blog post on Athletes and Intercultural Competency by Arayael E. Brandner
This is America. Speak
American.
This ethnocentric line of thinking might resonate with some
people or it might make others uncomfortable. There are people who feel as
though they do not have to adapt to other cultures and everyone should adapt to
theirs. Cultural ignorance. People that never have an opportunity to change
their worldview through study abroad, cultural programming through educational
opportunities, or living in a super diverse area, might not have the
understanding of why it is important to have some kind of intercultural
competence.
In recent events, a United States swimmer and Olympic gold
medalist, made a culturally incompetent mistake. You might be familiar with the
Rio scandal that involved Ryan Lochte making a false report to Brazilian
authorities about being robbed near a gas station. Instead, video surveillance
showed the swimmers were not harmed, but instead vandalized the gas station
bathroom. (See USA Today link for full story)
Did the Olympic athletes have some sort of cultural training
before heading down to Rio de Janeiro to compete? If Ryan Lochte received some
sort of intercultural training, do you think the scenario would have played out
differently? Maybe, maybe not. These are valid questions, and one would think
that these high profile athletes, who are representing nations, would receive
some type of preparation before entering into a different culture to compete on
a global platform. Darla Deardorff, a leading scholar-practitioner in the field
of International Education, created a cultural competency framework, and it
mentions skills that can be learned to help individuals become more culturally
and globally competent when found in environments different than their own. The
framework displays how one acquires global competency skills, attitudes, global
knowledge, and internal and external outcomes (Deardorff, 2009). In her model she has illustrated the process an
individual goes through to gain competency skills. It starts with the
individual and the attitude and previous knowledge/experience one has acquired
on their own in their normal living environment. Then through an international
or cultural experience, the individual then moves into the interaction stage
where internal and external outcomes come into play. A likely internal outcome
would be something like adaptability to new environments, people, food, customs
or developing empathy and understanding of your own background to this new
culture you are immersed into. A desired external outcome would be proper
communication and behavior in an intercultural setting. This external outcome
would have been very useful and relevant for Mr. Lochte to have had in his trip
down to Rio.
I would argue that if the Olympic athletes were required to
complete some kind of cultural competency training before embarking on their
road to Rio, this scenario would have played out differently, or not even
occurred. As globalization increases, cultural programming should become an
integral part of professional development and trainings, along with infusing
these themes in an educational setting through curriculum and study abroad
opportunities to change worldview perspectives and enhance intercultural
competency skills. We want to move away from an ethnocentric way of thinking to
become interculturally sensitive and open to new opportunities and
environments.
References
Deardorff,
Darla (2009). Theory reflections: intercultural competence framework/model. The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural
Competence at https://www.nafsa.org/_/File/_/theory_connections_intercultural_competence.pdf
Photo credit: Toby and Tai Shan
