Last weekend I found myself at the 2nd International Conference on Chinese Language Pedagogy in Berkeley, CA. I was there to help my mom at her vendor table for Chinese Books for Children, which was in the conference room where the keynote speech was held. I like it when the vendors are in the same room as the speakers, because then I get to listen!
The speaker that morning was Myriam Met, the Director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. She talked about the importance of teaching foreign cultures in addition to, and perhaps separately from, teaching foreign languages.
While she shared a lot of her insights into the complexity of cultural transmission and the question of cultural education's goals, one idea of hers particularly stood out to me because I had never encountered it before: Interculturalism.
Myriam defined the term "multicultural" as being simultaneously a member of more than one culture. However, she then said something that surprised me. She said that she did not think it was a reasonable expectation for someone to become multicultural through education. No matter how much we learn about a new culture, we will always be cultural outsiders, and not a true member of the culture. (She did not address the issue of immigration or long-term residence in a new culture, which I believe could result in true cultural assimilation. I believe she was speaking only on the subject of education and curriculum in a classroom setting.)
A more reasonable objective as an alternative to true multiculturalism, Myriam believed, was "interculturalism." Interculturalism is being able to communicate with, collaborate with, and befriend people across multiple cultures. Rather than trying to become a member of a foreign culture, we should strive to understand the cultural/historical perspectives of behaviors, and learn how to communicate effectively with these perspecives taken into account. For example, if we learn that the Chinese value community well-being over individual well-being as a result of thousands of years of Confucian ideals, we can approach our personal and business relationships with this in mind. We don't necessarily have to believe in the same ideals, but knowing where others are coming from will certainly help form friendships and business relationships.
If our goal, then, is to become intercultural, then our cultural education, the stuff that is tacked on in our foriegn language classes, has a more concrete basis for curriculum development. To the teachers in the audience, she suggested that they ask themselves what the goal of each cultural lesson was, and if it strengthened true intercultural understanding and relationships.
This idea is, essentially, not too different from what our intuition would tell us. However, I like the idea that there is actually a difference between multliculturalism and interculturalism. I also think that separating the two would make it easier to develop cultural curricula aimed at teaching students to be good world citizens, rather than simply throwing out undifferentiated cultural trivia.
The speaker that morning was Myriam Met, the Director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. She talked about the importance of teaching foreign cultures in addition to, and perhaps separately from, teaching foreign languages.
While she shared a lot of her insights into the complexity of cultural transmission and the question of cultural education's goals, one idea of hers particularly stood out to me because I had never encountered it before: Interculturalism.
Myriam defined the term "multicultural" as being simultaneously a member of more than one culture. However, she then said something that surprised me. She said that she did not think it was a reasonable expectation for someone to become multicultural through education. No matter how much we learn about a new culture, we will always be cultural outsiders, and not a true member of the culture. (She did not address the issue of immigration or long-term residence in a new culture, which I believe could result in true cultural assimilation. I believe she was speaking only on the subject of education and curriculum in a classroom setting.)
A more reasonable objective as an alternative to true multiculturalism, Myriam believed, was "interculturalism." Interculturalism is being able to communicate with, collaborate with, and befriend people across multiple cultures. Rather than trying to become a member of a foreign culture, we should strive to understand the cultural/historical perspectives of behaviors, and learn how to communicate effectively with these perspecives taken into account. For example, if we learn that the Chinese value community well-being over individual well-being as a result of thousands of years of Confucian ideals, we can approach our personal and business relationships with this in mind. We don't necessarily have to believe in the same ideals, but knowing where others are coming from will certainly help form friendships and business relationships.
If our goal, then, is to become intercultural, then our cultural education, the stuff that is tacked on in our foriegn language classes, has a more concrete basis for curriculum development. To the teachers in the audience, she suggested that they ask themselves what the goal of each cultural lesson was, and if it strengthened true intercultural understanding and relationships.
This idea is, essentially, not too different from what our intuition would tell us. However, I like the idea that there is actually a difference between multliculturalism and interculturalism. I also think that separating the two would make it easier to develop cultural curricula aimed at teaching students to be good world citizens, rather than simply throwing out undifferentiated cultural trivia.
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