Developing Intercultural Understanding: An Introduction for Teachers

Purpose:

To explore identity, as culturally constructed and multilayered, as an aspect intercultural understanding

1 Exploring cultural identities

Suggested time allocation: 10 mins.

Provide Resource 6: Our culture.

Ask participants to read it. Invite comment and highlight that intercultural understanding begins with exploring and understanding ‘own’ culture. Central to the discussion is being able to clearly understand that our culture has ways of behaving, thinking, valuing, acting that are perceived as usual.

Emphasise that ‘usual’ is culturally determined. As individuals we make decisions about the aspects of our cultural experiences, skills and knowledge with which we identify. An example could be the practices related to school. ‘Usual’ teacher behaviours and ‘usual’ student behaviours in Australian classrooms are conditioned by 120 years of social conditioning and expectations.

In small groups, participants are asked to identify situation/s in which it may now seem obvious that behaviour is culturally constructed but at some other time in their life seemed to be usual.

As a whole group share examples from small group discussion.

Refer to Slide  4: Lenses on difference. Invite comment about the extent to which some of the factors on the Slide impacted on the previous discussion. An example can be behaviours that may have been impacted upon by gender perceptions commonly held at that time that would not be held by the same group of people today. Therefore our own cultural identities vary according to context and to time.

Provide Resource 7: Reflective writing: cultural identities.

Ask participants to consider the layers of their own cultural identities. Suggest one option might be to do a self-portrait and identify important cultural considerations in their identity.

2 Multi-layered cultural identity

Suggested time allocation: 20 mins.

Explain that without explicit teaching, acknowledging different frames of reference for something that is not part of a learners experience and understanding that ‘usual’ can vary from person to person, culture to culture, will not be understood. If we are attempting to develop capacities in which individuals are able to participate and negotiate then individuals need to be able to engage with a variety of ‘usuals’.

The following activity is drawn from Australia Kaleidoscope. The purpose of the activity is to engage participants in thinking about identity, the various impacts on identity formation and to recognise similarity and difference of experience in cultural identity formation. In this case the activity is being used as an adult learning activity, however it may have application for some classrooms, ideally for students in upper primary or middle years of schooling.

Provide Resource 8: Exploring multilayered cultural identities, and ask participants to write a range of words that come to mind when they look at the image (Australia Kaleidoscope p. 50). In pairs, participants share their words and consider commonalities.

Refer to Slide 5: Exploring multilayered cultural identities.

Seek responses from participants to the following questions:

Participants read Aisha’s story ‘Aisha Novakovic: a campaigner for peace and harmony’ (pp. 50–53). Ask participants to reflect on previous responses. Ask participants to share their responses and assumptions.

• What were some of the common words or ideas that came to mind?
• Why do you think these words came to mind?
• What assumptions have we begun to make about the person in the photo?
• Is there anything we can say for certain simply by looking at the photograph?

Slide 6: Coding connections.

Explain the coding system on Slide 6 and then ask participants to read through the text about Aisha, using sticky notes to label the text with the suggested coding system.

Ask participants to form small groups and share some of their connections. Invite each group to explore any connections between their own experience and Aisha’s experience.

Additionally, ask participants to identify what they believe are the multilayered aspects of Aisha’s life.

Share one major point from each group.

3 Identity and intercultural understanding

Suggested time allocation: 5 mins.

• Refer participants to Session 2: Resource 1. In small groups, ask participants to consider the major teaching implications emerging from this session.

  Lead the discussion so that participants are able to identify culture as being multi-faceted and multilayered formed through individual experience. Participants may also be able to identify that many people are able to successfully work across a variety of cultures already, such as the culture of school and the culture of the sporting field. This program seeks to identify and enhance those skills so that they are useable in situations where the aspects of culture being mediated and negotiated are very different.

  As a whole group, share major points from small group discussion.