This article assumes that the internationalization of higher education demands more elaborate pedagogical approaches to utilise the experiences of multiethnic student groups and to facilitate every student’s acquisition of intercultural competencies. Drawing from three internationalisation ideologies embedded in the educational discourse, it is argued that intercultural communication – as a field of study or a discipline – can play a key role in this endeavour. Twelve fields of consideration, when international educators work with students, are also identified.
As with other evolving fields within the realms of science the ontological assumptions and epistemological aspirations of intercultural communication studies are matters of debate and disagreement. Differently put, the very point of take-off from which studies in this field are conducted is seldom scrutinized. This being said, this paper identifies and discusses a number of blindspots and biases of intercultural communication studies – e.g. the reluctance or inability to account for analytical ethnocentrism (‘home blindness’), heterocentrism (the unreflected and disproportionate focus on difference) or xenocentrism (the unreflected and disproportionate focus on ‘the other’). Additionally, normativism (the unreflected assumption that intercultural communication has desirable effects on people’s prejudices), cultural relativism versus absolutism, and particularism versus universalism are discussed. It is concluded that if the blindspots and biases of intercultural communication studies are overlooked, and thus the researcher is held as a cultural constant, the understanding of intercultural communication as interaction between two unavoidably and equally cultural interlocutors is deficient. Inspired by classical hermeneutics and discourse analysis it is therefore argued that intercultural communication studies researchers must declare their ontological assumptions and epistemological aspirations more actively and systematically.
Focus of this article is communicative challenges in multinational project work as well as how such challenges can be managed. By analyzing their communication in so called reflective dialogues and email correspondence the discussion sheds light upon how the participants of one such project talk about the meaning and pedagogical fruitfulness of horizontal classroom dialogue, and the degree to which they themselves actually communicate in a horizontal fashion within the project group.Drawing upon the discourse on classroom communication and intercultural communication data was subject to a qualitative analysis. Among other things, different aspects of horizontality in the dialogues were discerned but no significant differences in terms of indexicality were found. It was also shown that variations in the degree of horizontality-verticality in the dialogues and email correspondence may originate in different views on gender, project management and relationships between colleagues.Moreover, it was shown how reflective dialogues can be a useful tool for arriving at a common conceptual framework within a crossnational collaborative project. This said, the results can presumably be transferred to multicultural, and monocultural classrooms, to teacher teams analyzing problematic (or successful!) learning situations before ’taking measures’, or in order to raise teachers’ intercultural awareness.
In its political ambitions and pedagogical spirit to address an increasingly diverse population, the Swedish national curriculum for the preschool contains contradictory or even conflicting goals. On the one hand, the curriculum stipulates openness to, tolerance for and appreciation of cultural, ethnic, religious and social differences, and respect for the unique background of children. On the other hand, it stresses universal human rights and the fundamental values of Swedish society. How preschool teachers work with and make sense of such contradictory or even conflicting goals in everyday practice is the focus of this text. The research questions are: (1) How do preschool teachers describe the challenges they face in their daily work when they attempt to honour the stipulations of the curriculum? (2) Which strategies do they describe as using to manage these challenges? The empirical material consists of 14 focus group interviews with 41 preschool teachers from two highly ethnically and culturally diverse urban areas of metropolitan Stockholm. Results suggest that there are a number of recurring preschool situations where cultural and religious differences lead to dilemmas and potential friction between children, preschool teachers and parents. Results also show that the preschool curriculum provides little guidance and instead the preschool teachers must develop their own strategies to handle children’s and parents’ expectations and demands, for instance by using the children as cultural intermediaries. Overall, the preschool teachers adopt strategies that enable them to avoid “difficult” situations, which in effect risks placing the challenges on the shoulders of the children.