Competences developed by multi-national higher education students during their intercultural experience remain poorly defined. For instance, proponents of intercultural competence disagree as to its specific components, and its critics advocate for either a more inclusive or non-western pedagogy. Yet, growing numbers of mobile students study…

With the on-going "Learning Culture Survey", we aim to foster the implementation of culture-sensitive education. The motivation of this study is based on the need of a better understanding of the reasons for intercultural conflicts in education. These issues are particularly pertinent to international learning scenarios, such as in urban…

Like many countries building up human and technological resources, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has embarked on the goal of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) to its citizens. One goal for the KSA Ministry of Education is increasing acceptance rates at teacher colleges for both genders specializing in English, in addition to…

Discusses the critical importance of values in the conflicts over energy development projects on Native lands. Points out the differences between societies based on consumption versus those based on renewable development and reciprocity, and the difficulties in resolving intercultural conflicts based on value differences. (SV)

Culture shock is discussed as it affects Americans who travel extensively abroad. Culture shock can lead to total withdrawal from the new culture or to increased awareness, personal growth, and the development of new cross cultural skills. Communication problems contribute to culture shock in the form of language barriers, nonverbal…

Communal life in Malaysia is characterized by discords, tensions, and strife, especially between the Malays and Chinese. By and large, Malays are educationally and economically backward in comparison to non-Malays. Malays seek to redress what they consider racial imbalances through use of their political power. Constitutionally, certain privileges…

A discussion of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) conceptualizes ICC based on a review of the literature, details its major components and related propositions, and considers problems in and prospects for, the study of ICC. The literature of both intercultural communication and of communicative competence are examined for commonalities,…

A conflict between the author, engaged in doctoral research in a rural Kenyan community, and an older village woman is narrated. The author suggests that anthropologists must be sensitive to the way in which their own cultural perceptions influence their interpretations of women's behavior in other cultures. The Kenyan village is characterized by…

Submits that the interrelationship between dialect and identity is crucial to the strategy of teaching standard English, with particular reference to West Indian youth education. Further argues that ESL and ESD techniques differ on the psychological level, the latter requiring above all an enhancement of the learner's confidence in his culture.…

This paper presented by the Quebec (Canada) Minister of Communications contends that until the 1900s the cultural essence of a particular western country was found in its folk-tales, folk-songs, and the daily activities of ordinary people. The growth of the electronic and mass media has industrialized popular culture, and large-scale passive…

Literary writing in Africa and the Pacific addresses themes that reflect colonial experience and the struggles of newly independent nations to cope with change and conflicts between traditional and modern existence. The novels of Chinua Achebe of Nigeria and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o of Kenya illustrate many dominant themes of African literature. Achebe…

This paper describes two research projects in the anthropology of landscape architecture design which show that "professional culture" restrictions often prevent anthropologists from putting their theories into practice. The first research project grew out of the author's assumption that landscape architecture students were not producing…

Mary Louise Pratt's reading of "contact zone," which she defines as "those social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power," enables an instructor to think in terms of naming and autoethnography. The "contact zone" has become a way to…

With over 95 percent of the people professing Buddhism, about 90 percent having a common or related racial origin, and almost 85 percent speaking the Thai language, the Thai society is fairly homogeneous. There are, however, a few ethnic minorities of which the significant ones are the Chinese (12 percent of the population), the Malays (2…

This research investigated the impact of school setting and size on the culture and climate of a school. Twenty-five schools and 1,163 teachers were involved in the study. There was a significant negative correlation between school size and the school's culture and climate. Other findings were that elementary schools had more positive climates…